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SERMONS

PREACHED IN BOSTON

ON THE DEATH OP

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

Rev. E. N. Kirk.

„ William Hague.

„ W. S. Studlet.

„ Rtrrcs Ellis.

,, A. A. Miner.

„ Cyrus A. Bartol.

„ Warren H. Cudworth.

„ A. L. Stone.

„ James Freeman Clarke.

„ J. M. Manning.

„ W. R. Nicholson.

„ George L. Chaney.

Rev. R. H. Neale.

„ F. D. Huntington.

„ George H. Hepworth.

,, John E. Todd.

„ E. B. Webb.

„ Chandler Robbins.

„ E. E. Hale.

,, S. K. Lothrop.

„ H. W. Foote.

„ J. D. Fulton.

„ James Reed.

„ Dr. Putnam, of Roxburv.

TOGETHER WITH THE

Funeral Services at Washington.

EPISCOPAL BURIAL SERVICE.

PRAYER BT BISHOP SIMPSON.

SERMON BY REV. DR. GURLEY.

CLOSING PRAYER BY REV. DR. GRAY,

J. E. TILTON & CO., Publishers.

- t JTS,E Serm°DS are the tb0U"hts of some of our ab'^t men, and a fair index
ot the feeling of the entire community when the sad news was received. How val-
uable such a book must grow, as year follows year, and we can look back and read
our thoughts and feelings as they were when the deed was done! It is a book
winch every family should own and preserve as a memorial of the time, for them,
seU-es; and that their children, when we are gone, may read the thoughts of men
who lived in the time of the Great Ptebellion.

The book is beautifully printed on fine tinted paper, and neatly bound for pres-
ervation. Price $2.00. Sent by mail on receipt of price.

" This will be a volume every one will wish to own and to preserve as a
memorial of the tragic event which is to stand so prominent in our history. After
this generation has passed away, the history of our time will be read with greater
interest than any other period, and the student will wish to know how we felt and
what wns said about the murder of the President. This book is to tell them, and
will possess an always increasing interest as it is handed down from father to
son."

Assassination op President Lincoln. — Every thing relating to this event will be
read to the world"s ending, so full bf horror was it and atrocious crime. Books written upon
it should be preserved, that other generations may see how we felt that were contemporaneous
with it. Leading these books, of which undoubtedly many will follow, is one just issued by
J. E. Tilton & Co., — a volume of Sermons preached in Boston the Sunday after the news of
the President's death, all devoted to the subject of the bereavement, and pouring such com-
fort as faith suggested upon the hearts of a stricken people. These Sermons are splendid
for preservation, expressing as they do the emotion of a Christian people under a cloud of
deeper tinge than any had previously known ; and every library should possess one, as com-
memorative of the event, and as demonstrative of the pulpit-eloquence of the day. — Ex-
change.

Book foe Preservation. — Books or relics, cotemporaneous with and relating to great
events, possess a value which we readily admit ; and the same rule will prevail with generations
to come, that are recalling, by the aid of history, our own time, and its burden of great
events, every thing pertaining to which will be held as priceless. One of those things which
would be most esteemed is a volume of Sermons, just published by J. E. Tilton & Co., preached
upon the Sunday succeeding the massacre of President Lincoln, when the pulpit of the nation
was eloquent upon the topic that had shrouded the land with gloom. The pulpit of Boston
was especially thus ; and the Sermons collected are the best among the many, expressive of
the sense of the general bereavement, and applying the afflictive lesson to the public good
through the aid of an exalted faith. So pertinent to the time is the book, that nothing could
be better to save ; and it has been printed and bound in a manner to assure its preservation.
It is truly an elegant work, creditable to publisher and printer, and worthy a high place
among the literature of to-day. — Chronicle.

A Work for Posterity. — Future generations, and those not remote, turning back to
our time for facts relating to the foul murder of our late beloved Chief Magistrate, will hail
with pleasure any book expressive of the Christian feeling under the awful bereavement ; and
hence, for preservation, no book could be better conceived than the volume, just published by
J. E. Tilton & Co., of Sermons preached in Boston the day after the news of the event was
received. These Sermons are eloquent and forcible as might be expected, wrought out of a
calamity that had so wrung the heart of the nation, credible to the intellect as well as the fcel-
iug of the time, and excellent for preservation for those to read who come after us. It may
be commended as an historical work, and it will take rank as such. — Banner.

A Timely Work. — The volume of Boston Sermons preached on the assassination of Presi-
dent Lincoln, has already met with a wide demand ; not merely local, but everywhere where
Boston is recognized as a literary centre. The Sermons are eloquent expressions of the various
emotions that the event awakened, when the woe was most pressing, and every heart was bowed
with the sense of almost personal bereavement ; and hence the book is a religious exponent of
tlir time, destined to show the world, at some distant day, the estimate of a Christian people of
an art that never had an equal for atrocity since the time when the Son of man himself was
slain. It will be an admirable work for preservation, and should find a place in every library.
It may be had of .1. E. Tilton & Co.. the publishers. Who have produced it in a very beautiful
and durable manner. —Journal.

■

^gt$^ ■

Sfit=cL ^r.

J. W. HOLTON,

No. 150 HARVARD ST.,

Springfield, Mass.

Digitized by the Internet Archive
•t ' in 2010 with funding from

The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

http://www.archive.org/details/sermonspreach1261gurl

SERMONS

PREACHED IN BOSTON

ON THE DEATH OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

TOGETHER WITH THE FUNERAL SERVICES IN

THE EAST ROOM OF THE EXECUTIVE

MANSION AT WASHINGTON.

BOSTON:

,T. E. TILTON Jk.JXU COMPANY .
1865.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1865,

BY J. E. TILTON" AND CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Stereotyped By C. J. Teteks & Son,
No. 13 Washington Street.

Tress op Geo. C. Rand & Avery.

y i'-e

CONTENTS.

FUNERAL SERVICE AT WASHINGTON.

Page.
I. B URIAL SER VICE READ BY REV. MR. HALL. 7

II. OPENING PRAYER BY BISHOP SIMPSON. 9

III. SERMON BY REV. P. D. GURLEY. ... 16

Mark xi. : 22.

IV. CLOSING PRAYER BY REV. E. H. GRAY. 28

SERMONS IN BOSTON.

V. REV. E. N. KIRK. 33

Psaems xlvi. : 10.
VI. REV. CYRUS A. BARTOL 51

VII. REV. J. M. MANNING 59

Deuteronomy xxxiv. : 4, 5.

VIII. REV. JOHN E. TODD 75

Psaems xciii. : 1.
IX. REV. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. ... 91
2 Tim. i.: 10.
X. REV. GEORGE H. HEPWORTH. .... 109
Mattiiew Lx. : 15.
XI. REV. W. R. NICHOLSON. 125

XII. REV. WILLIAM HAGUE 129

Samuel iii. : 38.

CONTENTS.

XIII. REV. E. B. WEBB 145

Isaiah xxi. : 11, 12.

XIV. REV. R. II. NEALE 163

Matthew ix. : 15.

XV. REV. HENRY W. FOOTE 179

XVI. REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON. 193

XVII. REV. WARREN H. CUDWORTH. .... 199
Daniel iv. : 35.

XVIII. REV. CHANDLER ROBBINS 215

Psalms lxxvii. : 19.

XIX. REV. W. S. STUDLEY. 227

Lamentations v. : 15, 16, 17, 19.

XX. REV. RUFUS ELLIS. 235

Luke xxiv. : 5, 6.

XX7. REV. SAMUEL K. LOTHROP 245

2 Samuel six. : 2.

XX77. REV. EDWARD E. HALE 267

1 Corinthians xv. : 57.

XXZ77. REV. A. A. MINER 279

Psalms lxxxix. : IS.

XXIV. REV. JAMES REED 295

XXF. REV. GEORGE PUTNAM 309

XXVI. REV. GEORGE L. CHANEY. 325

John xiv. : 18.

XXF77. REV. A. L. STONE 337

Lamentations v. : 15, 16.

XXVIII. REV. J. D. FULTON. 359

Deuteronomy xxxiv. : 7.

REV. P. I). GURLEY.

BURIAL SERVICE,

At ten minutes past 12, Rev. Mr. Ham. opened the
services by reading from the Episcopal burial service
for the dead as follows :

" I am the resurrection and the life saith the Lord ; he
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he
live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die. — John xi : 25, 26.

" I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall
stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after
my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall
I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes
shall behold and not another. — Job six : 25, 26, 27.

" We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain
we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave and the Lord
hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." —
1 Timothy vi : 7, and Job i: 21.

' ' Lord, let me know my end and the number of my
days, that I may be certified how long I have to live.
Behold, Thou hast made my days as it were but a span
long, and mine age is even as nothing in respect of Thee.
And verily every man living is altogether vanity ; for

(7)

8 SERMONS ON THE

man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself
in vain. He heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who
shall gather them. And now, Lord, what is my hope ?
Truly my hope is ever in Thee ; deliver me from
all my offences, and make me not a rebuke unto the
foolish. When Thou, with rebukes dost chasten man
for sin, Thou makest his beauty to consume away,
like as it were a moth fretting a garment. Every man
is, therefore, but vanity. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and
with Thine ears consider my calling. Hold not Thy
peace at my tears, for I am a stranger with Thee and a
sojourner, as all my fathers were. O, spare me a little,
that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be
no more seen. Lord, Thou hast been our refuge from
one generation to another. Before the mountains were
brought forth, or even the earth and the world were made,
Thou art God from everlasting, and world without end.
Thou turnest man to destruction ; again Thou sayest,come
again, ye children of men, for a thousand years in Thy
sight are but as yesterday, seeing that it is past as a
watch in the night. As soon as Thou scatterest them,
they are even as sheep, and fade away suddenly like the
grass. In the morning it is green and groweth up, but
in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered.
For we consume away in Thy displeasure, and are afraid
at Thy wrathful indignation. Thou hast set our mis-
deeds before Thee, and our secret sins in the light of Thy
countenance ; for when Thou art angry all our days are
gone. We bring our years to an end, as it were a tale
that is told. The days of our age are threescore years
and ten, and though men be so strong that they come to

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 9

fourscore years, yet is their strength then but labor and
sorrow, so soon passeth it away, and we are gone. So
teach us to number our days that Ave may apply our
hearts unto wisdom. Glory be to the Father, and to the
Son, and to the holy Ghost ; as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen."

Then was read the lesson from the 15th chapter
of St. Paul to the Corinthians, beginning with the
20th verse :

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become
the first-fruits of them that slept.

For since by man came death, by man came also the
resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive.

But every man in his own order : Christ the first-
fruits ; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.

Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered
up the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when he shall
have put down all rule, and all authority, and power.

For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under
his feet.

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

For he hath put all things under his feet. But when
he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that
he is excepted which did put all things under him.

And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then
shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put
all things under him, that God may be all in all.

10 SERMONS ON THE

Else what shall they do, which are baptized for the
dead, if the dead rise not at all ? why are they then
baptized for the dead ?

And why stand we in jeopardy every hour ?

I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ
Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

If after the manner of men I have fought with beast3
at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise
not ? let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die.

Be not deceived ; evil communications corrupt good
manners.

Awake to righteousness, and sin not ; for some have
not the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.

But some man will say, How are the dead raised up ?
and with what body do they come ?

Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened
except it die :

And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that
body that shall be, but bare grain ; it may chance of
wheat, or of some other grain :

But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and
to every seed his own body.

All flesh is not the same flesh ; .but there is one kind
of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of
fishes, and another of birds.

There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial :
but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the
terrestrial is another.

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of
the moon, and another glory of the stars ; for one star
differeth from another star in glory.

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 11

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in
corruption, it is raised in incorruption :

It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory : it is sown
in weakness, it is raised in power :

It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a
living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

Howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual, but
that which is natural ; and afterward that which is
spiritual.

The first man is of the earth, earthy : the second man
is the Lord from heaven.

As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy :
and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are
heavenly.

And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we
shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot
inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption
inherit incorruption.

Behold, I shew you a mystery : "We shall not all
sleep, but we shall all be changed,

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall
be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and
this mortal must put on immortality.

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorrup-
tion, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then
shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory.

12 SERMONS ON THE

O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy
victory ?

The sting of death is sin ; and the strength of sin is
the law.

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory,
through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast,
unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in
the Lord.

Bishop Simpson, of Philadelphia, then offered the
following opening prayer :

Almigbty God, our Heavenly Father, as with smitten
and suffering hearts we come into Thy presence, we
pray, in the name of our blessed Redeemer, that Thou
woiddst pour upon us Thy Holy Spirit, that all our
thoughts and acts may be acceptable in Thy sight. We
adore Thee for all Thy glorious perfections. We praise
Thee for the revelation which Thou hast given us in Thy
works and in Thy Word. By Thee all worlds exist.
All beings live through Thee. Thou raisest up king-
doms and empires, and castest them down. By Thee
kings reign and princes decree righteousness. In Thy
hand are the issues of life and death. We confess
before Thee the magnitude of our sins and transgres-
sions, both as individuals and as a nation. We implore
Thy mercy for the sake of our Redeemer. Forgive
us all our iniquities. If it please Thee, remove Thy

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 13

chastening hand from us ; and, though we be
unworthy, turn away from us Thine anger, and let the
light of Thy countenance again shine upon us.

At this solemn hour, as we mourn for the death of
our President, who was stricken down by the hand of an
assassin, grant us also the grace to bow in submission
to Thy holy will. May we recognize Thy hand high
above all human agencies, and Thy power as controlling
all events, so that the wrath of man shall praise Thee,
and that the remainder of wrath Thou wilt restrain.
Humbled under the suffering we have endured, and the
great afflictions through which we have passed, may we
not be called upon to offer other sacrifices. May the
lives of all our officers, both civil and military, be
guarded by Thee ; and let no violent hand fall upon any
of them. Mourning as we do, for the mighty dead by
whose remains we stand, we would yet lift our hearts
unto Thee in grateful acknowledgment for Thy kindness
in giving us so great and noble a commander.

Thou art glorified in good men, and we praise Thee
that Thou didst give him unto us so pure, so honest, so
sincere, and so transparent in character. We praise
Thee for that kind, affectionate heart, which always
swelled with feelings of enlarged benevolence. We
bless Thee for what Thou didst enable him to do ; that
Thou didst give him wisdom to select for his advisers,
and for his officers, military and naval, those men
through whom our country has been carried through
an unprecedented conflict.

We bless Thee for the success which has attended
all their efforts, and victories which have crowned oar
2

14 SERMONS ON THE

armies ; and that Thou didst spare Thy servant until he
could behold the dawning of that glorious morning of
peace and prosperity which is about to shine upon our
land ; that he was enabled to go up as Thy servant of
old upon Mount Pisgah, and catch a glimpse of the
promised land. Though his lips are silent and his arm
is powerless, we thank Thee that Thou didst strengthen
him to speak words that cheer the hearts of the suffering
and the oppressed, and to write that declaration of eman-
cipation which has given him an immortal reward ; that
though the hand of the assassin has struck him to the
ground, it could not destroy the work which he has
done, nor forge again the chains which he has broken.
And while we mourn that he has passed away, we are
grateful that his work was so fully accomplished, and
that the acts which he has performed will forever remain.

We implore Thy blessing upon his bereaved family,
Thou husband of the widow. Bless her who, broken-
hearted and sorrowing, feels oppressed with unutterable
anguish. Cheer the loneliness of the pathway which
lies before her, and grant to her such consolations of
Thy spirit, and such hopes, through the resurrection,
that she shall feel that " Earth hath no sorrows which
Heaven cannot heal."

Let Thy blessing rest upon his sons ; pour upon
them the spirit of wisdom ; be Thou the guide of their
youth ; prepare them for usefulness in society, for hap-
piness in all their relations. May the remembrance of
theil father's counsels, and their father's noble acts,
ever stimulate them to glorious deeds, and at last may
they be heirs of everlasting life.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 15

Command Thy rich blessings to descend upon the suc-
cessor of our lamented President. Grant unto him
wisdom, energy, and firmness for the responsible duties
to which he has been called ; and may he, his cabinet,
officers and generals who shall lead his armies, and the
brave soldiers in the field, be so guided by Thy counsels
that they shall speedily complete the great work which
he had so successfully carried forward.

Let Thy blessing rest upon our country. Grant unto
us all a fixed and strong determination never to cease
our efforts until our glorious Union shall be fully
re-established.

Around the remains of our loved President may we
covenant together by every possible means to give our-
selves to our country's service until every vestige of this
rebellion shall have been wiped out, and until slavery,
its cause, shall be forever eradicated.

Preserve us, we pray Thee, from all complications
with foreign nations. Give us hearts to act justly
toward all nations, and grant unto them hearts to act
justly toward us, that universal peace and happiness may
fill our earth. We rejoice, then, in this inflicting dis-
pensation Thou hast given, as additional evidence of the
strength of our nation. We bless Thee that no tumult
has arisen, and in peace and harmony our government
moves onward ; and that Thou hast shown that our re-
publican government is the strongest upon the face of
the earth.

In this solemn presence, may we feel that we too are
immortal ! May the sense of our responsibility to God
rest upon us ; may we repent of every sin ; and may we

16 SERMONS ON THE

consecrate anew unto Thee all the time and all the
talents which Thou hast given us ; and may we so fulfil
our allotted duties that finally we may have a resting-
place with the good, and wise, and the great, who now
surround that glorious throne ! Hear us while Ave unite
in praying with Thy Church in all lands and in all ages,
even as Thou hast taught us, saying :

Our Father which art in heaven ; hallowed be Thy
name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth
as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those
who trespass against us. And lead us not into tempta-
tion, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen !

DR. GURLEY'S SERMON.

As we stand here to-day, mourners around this coffin,
and around the lifeless remains of our beloved chief
magistrate, we recognize and we adore the sovereignty
of God. His throne is in the Heavens, and His king-
dom ruleth over all. He hath done, and He hath
permitted to be done, whatsoever he pleased. Clouds
and darkness are round about him ; righteousness and
judgment are the habitation of his throne. His way is
in the sea and his path in the great waters, and his foot-
steps are not known. Canst thou by searching find out
God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ?
It is as high as Heaven, what canst thou do ? Deeper
than hell, what canst thou know ? The measure thereof

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 17

is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. If
He cut off and shut up, or gather together, then who
can hinder him ? for He knoweth vain men, He seeth
wickedness : also, will he not then consider it ? We
bow before His Infinite Majesty, — we bow, we weep,
we worship.

" Where reason fails with all her powers,
There faith prevails and love adores."

It was a cruel, cruel hand, that dark hand of the assas-
sin, which smote our honored, wise, and noble President,
and filled the land with sorrow. But above and beyond
that hand there is another, which we must see and
acknowledge. It is the chastening hand of a wise and
a faithful Father. He gives us this bitter cup, and the
cup that our father has given us shall we not drink it ?

God of the just, thou givest us the cup,
"We yield to thy behest, and drink it up.

Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. Oh, how these
blessed words have cheered and strengthened and sus-
tained us through all these long and weary years of civil
strife, while our friends and brothers on so many ensan-
guined fields were falling and dying for the cause of
liberty and union. Let them cheer and strengthen and
sustain us to-day. True, this new sorrow and chastening
has come in such an hour and in such a way as we
thought not, and it bears the impress of a rod that is very
heavy, and of a mystery that is very deep, that such a
life should be sacrificed at such a time, by such a foul
and diabolical agency ; that the man at the head of the
2*

18 SERMONS ON THE

nation, whom the people had learned to trust with a con-
fiding and a loving confidence, and upon whom more than
upon any other were centered, under God, our best hopes
for the true and speedy pacification of the country, the
restoration of the Union, and the return of harmony
and love, — that he should be taken from us, and
taken just as the prospect of peace was brightly opening
upon our torn and bleeding country, and just as he was
beginning to be animated and gladdened with the hope
of ere long enjoying with the people the blessed fruit
and reward of his and their toils, care and patience and
self-sacrificing devotion to the interests of liberty and
the Union. Oh, it is a mysterious and a most afflicting
visitation. But it is our Father in Heaven, the God of
our fathers and our God, who permits us to be so
suddenly and sorely smitten ; and we know that His
judgments are right, and that in faithfulness He has
afflicted us. In the midst of our rejoicings we needed
this stroke, this dealing, this discipline and therefore
He has sent it. Let u& remember our affliction has not
come forth of the dust, and our trouble has not sprung
out of the ground.

Through and beyond all second causes, let us look and
see the sovereign permissive agency of the great First
Cause. It is his prerogative to bring light out of darkness,
and good out of evil. Surely the wrath of man shall praise
him, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain. In
the light of a clearer day, we may yet see that the
wrath which planned and perpetrated the death of the
President was overruled by Him, whose judgments are
unsearchable and His ways past finding out, for the

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 19

highest welfare of all those interests which are so dear
to the Christian patriot and philanthropist, and for
which a loyal people have made such an unexampled
sacrifice of treasure and of hlood. Let us not he faith-
less, but believing.

" Blind unbelief is prone to err, and scan His work in vain ;
God is bis own interpreter, and be will make it plain."

We will wait for his interpretation ; and we will wait in
faith, nothing doubting. He who has led us so well,
and defended and prospered us so wonderfully during
the last four years of toil and struggle and sorrow,
will not forsake us now. He may chasten, but he will
not destroy. He may purify us more and more in the
furnace of trial, but he will not consume us. No, no.
He has chosen us, as he did his people of old, in the
furnace of affliction ; and he has said of us, as he said
of them, this people have I formed for myself; they
shall show forth my praise.' Let our principal anxiety
now be that this new sorrow may be a sanctified sorrow ;
that it may lead us to deeper repentance, to a more
humbling sense of our dependence upon God, and to
the more unreserved consecration of ourselves, and all
that we have, to the cause of truth and justice, of law
and ordfer, of liberty and good government, of pure and
undefiled religion. Then, though weeping may endure
for a night, joy will come in the morning. Blessed be
GOd. Despite of this great and sudden and temporary
darkness, the morning has begun to dawn, the morning
of a bright and glorious day, such as our' country has
never seen. That day will come and not tarry, and the

20 SERMONS ON THE

death, of a hundred presidents and then1 cabinets can
never, never prevent it. While we are thus hopeful,
however, let us also be humble. The occasion calls us
to prayerful and tearful humiliation. It demands of us
that we lie low, very low, before Him who has smitten
us for our sins. Oh that all our rulers and all our people
may bow in the dust to-day beneath the chastening hand
of God, and may their voices go up to him as one voice,
and their hearts go up to him as one heart, pleading
with him for mercy, for grace to sanctify our great and
sore bereavement, and for wisdom to guide us in this
our time of need ! Such a united cry and pleading will
not be in vain. It will enter into the ear and heart of
Him who sits upon the throne, and He will say to us,
as to his ancient Israel, "In a little wrath, I hid my
face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kind-
ness will I have mercy upon thee, saith the Lord, thy
Redeemer."

I have said, that the people confided in the late lament-
ed President with a full and a loving confidence. Pro-
bably no man since the days of Washington was ever so
deeply and firmly imbedded and enshrined in the very
hearts of the people as Abraham Lincoln. Nor was it a
mistaken confidence and love. He deserved it ; deserved
it well ; deserved it all. He merited it by his character,
by his acts, and by the whole tenor and tone and spirit of
his life. He was simple and sincere, plain and honest,
truthful and just, benevolent and kind. His perceptions
were quick and clear, his judgments were calm and
accurate, and his purposes were good and pure beyond
a question. Always and everywhere he aimed and

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 21

endeavored to he right and to do right. His integrity
was thorough, all-pervading, all-controlling, and incor-
ruptible. It was the same in every place and relation,
in the consideration and control of matters great or small,
the same firm and steady principle of power and beauty,
that shed a clear and crowning lustre upon all his other
excellences of mind and heart, and recommended him to
his fellow-citizens as the man, who, in a time of unexam-
pled peril, when the very life of the nation was at stake,
should be chosen to occupy in the country, and for the
country, its highest post of power and responsibility.
How wisely and well, how purely and faithfully, how
firmly and steadily, how justly and successfully he did
occupy that post, and meet its grave demands, in circum-
stances of surpassing trial and difficulty, is known to
you all, — known to the country and the world; he
comprehended from the first the perils to which treason
had exposed the freest and best government on the earth,
— the vast interests of liberty and humanity that were to be
saved or lost forever in the urgent impending conflict. He
rose to the dignity and momentousness of the occasion,
saw his duty as the Chief Magistrate of a great and
imperilled people, and he determined to do his duty, and
his whole duty, seeking the guidance and leaning upon
the arm of Him of whom it is written, "He giveth
power to the faint, and to them that have no might He
increaseth the strength." Yes, he leaned upon his arm.
He recognized and received the truth, that the kingdom
is the Lord's and He is the governor among the nations.
He remembered that God is in history, and he felt that
nowhere had his hand and his mercy been so marvel-

22 SERMONS ON THE

lously conspicuous as in the history of this nation. He
hoped and he prayed that that same hand would continue
to guide us, and that same mercy continue to abound to
us in the time of our greatest need. I speak what I
know, and testify what I have often heard him say, when
I affirm that that guidance and mercy were the props on
which he humbly and habitually leaned; that they
were the best hope he had for himself, and for his coun-
try. Hence, when he was leaving his home in Illinois,
and coming to this city to take his seat in the Executive
Chair of a disturbed and troubled nation, he said to the
old and tried friends who gathered tearfully around him,
and bade him farewell, I leave you with this request, —
pray for me. They did pray for him, and millions of
others prayed for him. Nor did they pray in vain.
Their prayers were heard, and the answer appears in all
his subsequent history. It shines forth with a heavenly
radiance in the whole course and tenor of his administra-
tion, from its commencement to its close.

God raised him up for a great and glorious mission,
furnished him for his work, and aided him in its accom-
plishment. Nor was it merely by strength of mind, and
honesty of heart, and purity and pertinacity of purpose,
that He furnished him. In addition to these things, He
gave him a calm and abiding confidence in the overrul-
ing providence of God, and in the ultimate triumph of
truth and righteousness, through the power and the
blessing of God. This confidence strengthened him in
all his hours of anxiety and toil, and inspired him with
calm and cheering hope, when others were inclining to
despondency and gloom. Never shall I forget the em-

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 23

phasis and the deep emotion with which he said, in this
very room, to a company of clergymen and others, who
called to pay him their respects in the darkest day of
our civil conflict : " Gentlemen, my hope of success, in
this great and terrible struggle, rests on that immuta-
ble foundation, the justice and goodness of God ; and,
when events are very threatening, and prospects very
dark, I still hope, that in some way which man cannot
see, all will be well in the end, because our cause is
just, and God is on our side." Such was his sublime
and holy faith ; and it was an anchor to his soul, both
sure and steadfast. It made him firm and strong. It
emboldened him in the pathway of duty, however
rugged and perilous it might be. It made him valiant
for the right, for the cause of God and humanity ; and
it held him in steady, patient, and unswerving adher-
ence to a policy of administration which he thought,
and which we all now think, both God and humanity
required him to adopt. We admired and loved him on
many accounts ; for strong and various reasons. We
admired his childlike simplicity ; his freedom from guile
and deceit ; his stanch and sterling integrity ; his kind
and forgiving temper ; his industry and patience ; his
persistent, self-sacrificing devotion to all the duties of
his eminent position, from the least to the greatest ; his
readiness to hear and consider the cause of the poor and
humble, the suffering and the oppressed ; his charity for
those who questioned the correctness of his opinions and
the wisdom of his policy ; his wonderful skill in recon-
ciling differences among the friends of the Union, lead-
ing them away from abstractions and inducing them to

24 SERMONS ON THE

■work together and harmoniously for the common weal ;
his true and enlarged philanthropy, that knew no dis-
tinction of color or race, but regarded all men as
brethren, and endowed alike by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights, amongst which are life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness ; his inflexible purpose, that
what freedom had gained in our terrible civil strife
should never be lost, and that the end of the war
should be the end of slavery, and as a consequence
of rebellion ; his readiness to spend and be spent
for the attainment of such a triumph, a triumph, the
blessed fruits of which shall be as wide-spreading
as the earth, and as enduring as the sun. All these
things commanded and fixed our admiration, and the
admiration of the world, and stamped upon his charac-
ter and life the unmistakable impress of greatness. But
more sublime than any or all of these, more holy and
influential, more beautiful and strong and sustaining,
was his abiding confidence in God, and in the final tri-
umph of truth and righteousness, through him, and for
his sake. This was his noblest virtue, his grandest
principle ; the secret, alike of his strength, his patience,
and his success. This, it seems to me, after being near
him steadily, and with him often, for more than four
years, is the principle by which, more than by any
other, he being dead yet speaketh. Yes, by his steady,
enduring confidence in God, and in the complete, ulti-
mate success of the cause of God, which is the cause of
humanity, more than in any other way, does he now
speak to us, and to the nation he loved and served so
well. By this he speaks to his successor in office, and

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 25

charges him to have faith in God. By this he speaks to
the members of his Cabinet, the men with whom he
counselled po often, and associated with so long, and he
charges them to have faith in God. By this he speaks
to all who occupy positions of influence and authority
in these sad and troublous times, and he charges them
all to have faith in God. By this he speaks to this
great people, as they sit in sackcloth to-day, and weep
for him with a bitter wailing, and refuse to be com-
forted, and he charges them to have faith in God; and
by this he will speak through the ages, and to all rulers
and peoples in every land, and his message to them will
be, Cling to liberty and right, battle for them, bleed for
them, die for them if need be, and have confidence in
God. Oh that the voice of this testimony may sink
down into our hearts to-day, and every day. and into the
heart of the nation, and exert its appropriate influence
upon our feelings, our faith, our patience, and our devo-
tion to the cause, now dearer to us than ever before,
because consecrated by the blood of its most con-
spicuous defender, its wisest and most fondly trusted
friend !

He is dead. But the God in whom he trusted lives, —
and he can guide and strengthen his successor as he
guided and strengthened him. He is dead. But the
memory of his virtues, of his wise and patriotic counsels
and labors, of his calm and steady faith in God, lives as
precious, and will be a power for good in the country
quite down to the end of time. He is dead. But the
cause he so ardently loved, so ably, patiently, faithfully
represented and defended, not for himself only, not for us
3

26 SEEMOXS ON THE

only, but for all people, in all their coming generations
till time shall be no more, — that cause survives his fall,
and will survive it. The light of its brightening pros-
pects flashes cheeringly to-day athwart the gloom occa-
sioned by his death, and the language of God's united
providences is telling us, that, though the friends of lib-
erty die, liberty itself is immortal. There is no assassin
strong enough and no weapon deadly enough to quench
its inextinguishable life or arrest its onward march to the
conquest and empire of the world. This is our confidence
and this is our consolation as we weep and mourn to-day:
Though our beloved President is slain, our beloved Coun-
try is saved ; and so we sing of mercy as well as of judg-
ment. Tears of gratitude mingle with those of sorrow.
While there is darkness, there is also the dawning of a
brighter, happier day upon our stricken and weary land.
God be praised that our fallen chief lived long enough to
see the day dawn, and the day star of joy and peace arise
upon the nation. He saw it, and he was glad. Alas ! alas !
He only saw the dawn. When the sun has risen full-orbed
and glorious, and a happy re-united people are rejoicing
in its light, it will shine upon his grave, but that grave
will be a precious and a consecrated spot. The friends
of Liberty and of the Union will repair to it in years
and ages to come, to pronounce the memory of its
occupant blessed, and gathering from his very ashes,
and from the rehearsal of his deeds and virtues, fresh
incentives to patriotism, they will there renew their
vows of fidelity to their country and their God.

And now I know not that I can more appropriately
conclude this discourse, which is but a sincere and

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 27

simple utterance of the heart, than by addressing to our
departed President, with some slight modification, the
language which Tacitus, in his life of Agricola, addresses
to his venerable and departed father-in-law. With you
we may now congratulate. You are blessed not only
because your life was a career of glory ; but because
you were releas: d, when, your country safe, it was
happiness to die. We have lost a parent ; and, in our
distress, it is now an addition to our heartfelt sorrow that
we had it not in our power to commune with you on the
bed of languishing, and receive your last embrace. Your
dying Avords would have been ever dear to us. Your
commands we should have treasured up, and graved
them on our hearts. This sad comfort we have lost, and
the wound, for that reason, pierces deeper. From the
world of spirits behold your disconsolate family and
people. Exalt our minds from fond regret and unavailing
grief to the contemplation of your virtues. Those we
must not lament. It were impiety to sully them with a
tear. To cherish their memory, to embalm them with
our praises, and so far as we can to emulate your bright
example, will be the truest mark of our respect, the best
tribute we can offer. Your wife will thus preserve the
memory of the best of husbands ; and thus your children
will prove their filial piety. By dwelling constantly on
your words and actions, they will have an illustrious
character before their eyes ; and, not content with the
bare image of your mortal frame, they will have what is
more valuable, — the form and features of your mind.
Busts and statues, like their originals, are frail and
perishable. The soul is formed of finer elements, and

28 SERMONS ON THE

its inward form is not to be expressed by the hand of
an artist. With unconscious matter our manners and
our morals may, in some degree, trace the resemblance.
All of you that gained our love and raised our admi-
ration still subsist, and will ever subsist, preserved in
the minds of men, the register of ages and the records
of fame. Others, who have figured on the stage of life,
and were the worthies of a former day, will sink for want
of a faithful historian into the common lot of oblivion,
inglorious and unremembered. But you, our lamented
friend and head, delineated with truth, and fairly con-
signed to posterity, will survive yourself, and triumph
over the injuries of time.

PRAYER.

The Rev. E. H. Gray, D. D., of the E St. Baptist
Church, closed the solemn services with prayer, as
follows :

God of the bereaved, comfort and sustain this mourn-
ina; family. Bless the new Chief Magistrate. Let the
mantle of his predecessor fall upon him. Bless the
Secretary of State and his family. O God, if possible,
according to Thy will, spare their lives that they may
render still important service to the country. Bless all
the members of the Cabinet. Endow them with wisdom
from above. Bless the commanders in our Army and
Navy, and all the brave defenders of the country. Give
them continued success. Bless the Embassadors from
foreign courts, and give us peace with the nations of the
earth. O God, let treason, that has deluged our land

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 29

with blood, and desolated our country, and bereaved our
homes, and filled them with widows and orphans, which
has at length culminated in the assassination of the
nation's chosen ruler, — God of justice, and Avenger of
the nation's wrong, let the work of treason cease, and let
the guilty perpetrators of this horrible crime be arrested,
and brought to justice ! O hear the cry and the prayer
and the wail rising from the nation's smitten and crushed
heart, and deliver us from the power of our enemy, and
send speedy peace into all our borders. Through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.

REV. E. N. KIRK.

PSALMS XLVI. 10.

Be still, and know that I am God.

On Sunday, the 2d instant, our army was exultingly
chasing the main army of the rebels from Richmond.
On Sunday, the 9th, the Commander-in-chief of the rebel-
lious forces capitulated to General Grant. On Sunday,
the 16th, the voice of song has died in our streets. The
triumphant banner of the Republic wears the weeds of
widowhood. A word can start the tear in every eye.
Arrangements for rejoicing are suspended. A nation is
making 'preparations for a funeral ; the greatest funeral
but one it ever attended ; yes, the greatest : for, the
people never buried such a President at such a time, — a
murdered President.

Which way shall we look ? what shall we do ? "What
becomes a people so afflicted, — so great a nation under
so great a calamity ? If we should catch and execute a
thousand vile assassins, or their viler employers, would
it bring back our lost ? would it place our practised
pilot at the helm again ? Where are we ? We had

34 SERMONS ON THE

fondly hoped the experience of four such years as we
have passed would give us guaranty for the four yea*s to
come.

But our hopes are blighted, our plans are frustrated.
We are stunned by the suddenness of the blow; con-
founded by the awful wickedness of the deed. Murder
is abroad ; murder, that seeks the highest mark ; that
dashes down one of the noblest of our race ; that blots
out the brightest star in our heavens ; that strikes at the
wisest, kindest, gentlest of us all ; that strikes at the life
of the nation in the man to whom the nation has
intrusted that life.

We are sad, — - we are sick at heart. We feel as if
our globe had lost its course, and were drifting down
toward the Botany Bay of the Universe. The reign of
Justice, of Law, of Order, seems to be past.

We seem to be struggling like drowning men, — the
black, chill waters are blinding our eyes, stiffening our
limbs, stifling our breath.

What shall we do ? Shall we fill the air with our
clamors ? Shall we put forth our strength in some mighty
deeds of vengeance ?

What is the work and duty of the hour, — of this
holy Sabbath ?

Thanks be to God ! a voice sounds from behind the
black cloud ; a voice from the upper throne ; a voice
from the world where no assassin lifts his hand ; where
treason and murder never are known. " Be still, and
know that I am God." That is just what our oppressed,
aching hearts rejoice to hear. It is, in the Psalm, as
really addressed to our enemies in their vain exultations,

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 35

as to us in our sorrow. But we need now to hear it for
ourselves.

This, fellow-citizens, is the great lesson of the day in
which we live ; of the horrid tragedy that makes a
nation mourn ; of the whole bloody plot of which this
is the culmination. What is the lesson ?

I. Suppress or modify all natural impulses by the
controlling power of religious feeling.

1. Distress must not be allowed complete control. —
Nature quivers in agony under such a blow. Who is
this thus brutally murdered? The man who had won
our love and gratitude beyond any of the living. Around
him, the tenderest cords of our hearts were bound. We
had placed in his hands the most sacred of earthly trusts.
He had led us so wisely, so firmly, so kindly, through
such a wilderness, and brought us out as God's minister
into so large a place and so great a deliverance. We
had seen in him so much of magnanimity, of sound
judgment, of gentle kindness, of robust manliness, of
tender sympathy, of lofty principle, we could not but
love him, strongly, tenderly. We have slept securely,
we have dismissed anxiety and fear, because our father
was at the helm. But he is gone, — dead ; murdered ;
basely assassinated ; with no last words, no time to tell
us where his hope was anchored, and whither he was
going.

Our hearts are weary with the dull pain of repeating
to ourselves — he is gone, gone from us forever.

Hark, suffering hearts ! a voice from the upper world, —

36 SEEMONS ON THE

"Be still, and know that lam God. If Abraham
Lincoln is dead, I live. If you loved him, love me, and
trust him in my hands. Mourn for yourselves, but
rejoice for him. His work was finished, nobly finished.
And I have removed him from the turmoil and confusion
of earth to the peace and rest of heaven."

2. We are liable to indulge in murmur ings. Why
should such wickedness be permitted to break in upon
the order of society ? Why should a wretch like the
leader of this rebellion be endowed with such executive
power and the ability to employ, directly or indirectly,
the black-hearted assassin to invade so noble a life, and
rob a nation of its polar star? "Be. still, and know
that I am God. Suppress all murmurs. Suffer,
weep, but do not murmur. Clouds and darkness are
round about him, but justice and judgment are the
pillars of his throne. My thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. For, as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
thoughts." Wisdom, rectitude, power, is the trinity
of attributes on that eternal throne Avhich presides over
all human affairs. We not only should not complain of
the divine government, we should cheerfully acquiesce
in its decrees, and in its permissions ; for it gives the
Devil the length of his chain, and makes him, in doing
his own work, accomplish the purposes that infinite
wisdom and love had formed.

You remember that Job anticipated the very features
of the divine government to perplex himself, that now
perplex us. And you remember God's method of reply.

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 37

It was essentially just this, — Be still, and know that I
am God. " Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words
without knowledge ? Gird up now thy loins like a man ;
for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where
wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ?
Declare, if thou hast understanding." If God walks on
the waves of the sea, only faith can follow him there.
Murmuring unbelief must remain on the solid shore, and
lose sight of his footsteps. Faith alone can walk on
waves, and sing amid the tempest, " In God is my
salvation."

Look, for instance, at this fact. He informs us in his
word that he chastens us for our good, though we cannot
always see how the end is secured. Faith believes his
statements and assurances. Sometimes it is obvious that
his chastisements are directed expressly to removing
that master-passion, the pride of our hearts.

If you are conversant with the history of Israel, you
will have discovered that a very prominent aim of the
Divine Providence is, to abase the pride of man. Man
has an utterly false standard, which teaches him to
admire most of the forms of pride in others, and all in
himself. Just study that history with this clew in your
hand; God's providence is rebuking the pride of men's
hearts. That is what he is doing to-day among us. We
had doubted Mr. Lincoln's ability at first. But now we
have proved it, and trusted him. We placed him the
second time at the head of our affairs, with the most
unreserved confidence, and a fulness of joy and thankful-
ness to God. We felt secure when the decision was
announced that he was ro-elected. We were sure of four

38 SERMONS ON THE

years of wise administration, of integrity at the core of
the government. But there was one thing we did not
make sufficiently prominent ; the uncertainty of human
life. We forgot every morning when we arose that
Abraham Lincoln's breath was in his nostrils. We forgot
that his own clemency was harboring the villains that
were plotting his destruction. But this was all virtually
written in God's word ; and we should have retained an
humbler spirit had we kept that word in more vivid
remembrance. It bade vis not to put our trust in an arm
of flesh, because, however strong to-day, to-morrow it
may be crumbling back to dust. It bade us not to put
our trust in man, for he is " crushed before the moth."
A pistol-ball closes his history, annihilates his strength,
turns him to dust. We were bidden not to put our trust
in princes, for then breath is in their nostrils. Abraham
was a prince, and we were proud of him, — so proud
that we hid God behind him. And now Ave hear a voice
in providence, echoing the voice in Scripture, Be still,
proud heart, and know that I am God. Boast no more
of thy strength, of thy generals, of thy brave defenders,
of thy magnanimous leader ; but " he that boasteth,
let him boast in the Lord." This terrible event pro-
claims, Man is frail, God is eternal. There is another
natural feeling now called into active exercise, but
which we must attemper by the power of a higher
religious sentiment.

3. Revenge is in man a perverted instinct, but as
really an instinct as the love of life. It was placed in
man as the sting was given to the bee, to resist aggres-
sion from superior force. But it has now become so

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 39

mingled with our selfishness, and so perverted Ave cannot
properly exercise it at all in personal matters, and scarcely
in public affairs. But it is impossible to look on a
dastardly oppressor or an act of cruelty, on any wrong
to another, without feeling an intense desire to make the
wrongdoer suffer.

How intensely this feeling is working to-day in the
length and breadth of this outraged country ! But to
that feeling to-day a voice from heaven speaks, — "Be
still, and know that I am God. Vengeance belongeth
to me, I will repay, saith the Lord." We have a duty
to perform ; a solemn duty,, a stern duty. We are deal-
ing with men who wear much of the image of their
father, who was a liar, and a traitor, and a rebel, and a
secessionist, and a murderer, from the beginning. The
magistrate must deal with them by the stern decrees of
law and justice, the soldier by the sterner decrees of
military usage ; but we, as men, as citizens, have no
personal or party revenge to gratify. All we have to do'
in this matter is this ; that as we are citizens of a re-
public, and the magistrate must be guided by two codes,
the statutes, and the public sentiment that sustains or
modifies them, we must form a correct public sentiment,
which is with us the backbone of law. Let traitors
carry personal revenge into their treatment of us. We
must let our revenge hear that voice, — Be still, and
know that I am God.

Another sentiment is outraged by recent events.

4. Justice. The outbreak was a high-handed act of
injustice. The robbery committed on the government,
the robbery not only of forts, and ships, and arms, but

40 SERMONS ON THE

of the territory purchased by our common treasury, and
of the men the government had trained to the art of
war at its own expense ; the enlistment of the selfish-
ness of foreign nations against us ; the treatment of our
brave soldiers, when made prisoners of war ; the treat-
ment of men who retained among them loyalty and
allegiance to the government that had always blessed
them, — all arouse the sense of justice more profoundly
in this nation, than any events of our history. Yes, if
there has been found in all that horrid region where
rebellion has scorched the very air men breathe, and
withered all the finer sentiments of the human soul, and
turned the very fountains of religious life into poisonous
springs ; there, if an Abdiel has been found, " faithful
among the faithless, among innumerable false, unmoved,
unshaken, unseduced, unterrified," that one has been
marked out for scorn and cruelty, for rapine and for
murder, even though the reverend crown of age was on
his brow.

A thousand times in this war has the sentiment of
justice within us called for fire from heaven to fall upon
the monsters. To-day it calls for the extermination of
a miscreant race, that prove themselves unfit to breathe
the air of heaven. But even that sentiment must be
restrained ; for we hear another voice. It proclaims to
us, " Be still, and know that I am God. I will judge
nations, communities, individuals, bringing them to my
bar, to make every man answer for the deeds done in
the body. Ask no more, wish for no more than that.
When the time comes for your tribunals in my name to
try each man by the laws of his country, then stand by

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 41

your judiciary in its righteous decisions, and let no
mawkish sentiment check the execution of them."

Another sentiment is now called into action.

5. Fear. A new pilot takes the helm. Mysteriously,
he did not command our respect on the solemn day in
which the nation put the crown upon his brow, and he
took the solemn oath of office. He has repented : this
is all we ask of him. Everything else in his history
inspires hope, respect, and gratitude. But still, it is not
the hand that held the rudder-wheel on those tempestu-
ous nights in which we were running through those
narrow channels where ruin lay on either side. Fear
naturally arises in such circumstances. It would come
up if you were in a steamship at sea, among icebergs,
with a captain who had sailed only river-craft until now.

And we have another source of fear. The man who
has held the powers of Europe at bay may also be
removed. A new man there would naturally awaken
solicitude.

And then, again : how do we know what new phase
this assassination may put upon a yet unfinished war ?
what new demonstrations of sympathy with treason may
spring up in the loyal States ? But when these fears
start up, we hear a voice saying to them, — "Be still,
and know that I am God. I kill, and I make alive. Of
whom hast thou been afraid, and hast not remembered
me ? Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong,
fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance ;
he will come and save you." " Fear not, thou worm
Jacob, and ye men of Israel ; I will help thee, saith the
Lord thy Redeemer, and the Holy One of Israel." His
4*

42 SERMONS ON THE

aim is to produce in you that confidence which shall
say : " God is my rock, my buckler. In God have I
put my trust. I will not fear what man can do unto
me. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help
in trouble. Therefore will we not fear though the earth
be removed, and though the mountains be carried into
the midst of the sea."

" Be still, and know that I am God." Do nothing
rashly, say nothing rashly. Wait until you see the
pillar of cloud go before you ; then move. Be still.
Quiet the agitated sea of your heart. Feeling was not
designed to hold the helm, but simply to fill the sails.
When trouble comes, be still ; so still that you can hear
every syllable God is whispering. For, you remember,
that when the prophet stood upon the mount before the
Lord, and the Lord passed by, there was " a great and
strong wind " that " rent the mountains, and broke in
pieces the rocks before the Lord ; but the Lord was not
in the wind ; and after the wind, an earthquake ; but
the Lord was not in the earthquake ; and after the earth-
quake, a fire ; but the Lord was not in the fire ; and
after the fire, a still small voice." There God was. The
wind is raging and howling around us now, the earth-
quake shakes the solid globe ; nay, our very hearts. The
fire is raging. But if we listen only to them, we shall
not hear the Lord. He is not in them. We must be
still ; for he comes in the still small voice, in a whisper
within that soul which waits, above all things, to hear
him speak.

Now when we are thus tranquillized, what does the
Lord say to us ? He says : "lam God."

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 43

II. His existence, attributes, providence, grace, and
glory are what he would have us to know and permanently
recognize. " Be still, and know that I am God."

1. His personal existence he would have us know.
Just hring this test home to yourself. Imagine one of
your neighbors to deny that you had a personal exist-
ence, to try to persuade others that you had not, to treat
you as if you had not. Nay, let him affirm that you
lack any one attribute of a rational being, — memory,
judgment, conscience, affection, — how deeply he injures
and offends you. And if he be your own beloved child,
nurtured and cherished by you, how painful his treat-
ment and estimate of you become ! Judge from that
how God regards pantheism, polytheism, atheism,
theoretic or practical. This nation has manifested
atheism very extensively. The Lord says — do so no
more. Deny not, forget not my person, my attributes.
Be not blind, amid the works of my hands, to my glory.
Be not deaf when I speak to you in my word. Treat
me as having a heart, an intelligence, a will, of which
your own is an imitation. Come as children, and speak
to me daily.

Oh ! will this nation be still enough now to hear the
Lord God Almighty assert his own existence, and
declare that excellence which makes the command to
love him supremely, infinitely reasonable ?

2. His providence he woidd have us know. It is a
providence of care : " upholding all things by the word
of his power." States and families, like the individuals
that compose them, " live and move, and have their
being" in Him. It is a providence of forethought and

44 SERMONS ON THE

purpose, directing all events to one glorious issue, from
the fall of a sparrow, or the shooting of an assassin's
pistol, to the overthrow of an empire, — making the
wrath of man to praise Him, and restraining the
remainder. Look at the shortsighted wickedness of
Joseph's brethren in sending him into what they sup-
posed would be a lifelong bondage. Look at Pharaoh's
oppression, aiming at the extermination of the sons of
Jacob, resulting in their becoming the medium of salva-
tion to the world. Look at these conspirators. They
have now sealed the verdict of the world ; the Confed-
eracy is a conspiracy of assassins. It began with
attempted assassination of the chief citizen, the repre-
sentative man of the nation. It ended in securing his
murder. They have murdered their strongest friend,
and broken down the last bulwark that kept the popular
will from being executed on them. A dark destiny is
now before them. And woe to the man that now comes
between them and the preparing blow! They have
united the loyal citizens more completely in that pur-
pose which will leave in some places no vestige of them
but the desolation their wickedness has wrought. They
have now made the issue. Die they, or the nation
must.

Is it not wonderful how God secures his ends by the
aims and endeavors of those who are attempting to
thwart his purposes ! See Him, fellow citizens ; recog-
nize his purposes concerning us, and his employment of
his and our enemies to execute them. His time has
come to bring Israel out of bondage, and Pharaoh must
do it. His time has come to release our African

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 45

brethren, but the masters must do it. His providence
is one of moral judgment. He does not make up the
full issue for any individual until death occurs. But
communities He judges here. He declares by his servant
Malachi : " Then shall ye return, and discern between
the righteous and the wicked ; between him that serveth
God, and him that serveth him not. For, behold, the
day cometh that shall burn as an oven ; and all the proud,
yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble."

What a development have the slaveholders made of
their character ! Some thought it severe, some untimely,
for a senator to utter that sentence of judgment on them,
pronouncing slavery barbarous. But the burning day of
judgment has now come, and they are witnesses on the
stand to the truth of the indictment, — arrogance, trea-
sons, perjury, breach of trust, brow-beating, cruelty,
assassination ; these are the epithets history will apply
to their conduct. The great white throne is set, and
black appears black before it. Davis and Stevens, Lee,
Toombs and Floyd, Mason and Breckenridge, every
naval and military officer that left our service, every
member of their Congress, every gaol-keeper that
guarded our soldiers in their prisons, every act of vio-
lence to our negro soldiers in their hands, every loyal
man of the South that they robbed and murdered, the
corpse of Abraham Lincoln, the mangled frame of Wil-
liam Seward are then witnesses. Truly there is a Ne-
mesis. They have gone like Judas to their own place in
history.

To know God in his providence we must become
familiar with his treatment of the Jews. The Old Tes-

46 SERMONS ON THE

lament must enter into our education. He made his
providence more marked and distinct with them than
with any other people. He blessed them when they
recognized his presence, and treated Him as their bene-
factor and rider. But see what terrible displays of his
displeasure followed their disobedience. Their various
captivities, of a duration of from five years to seventy,
and their final dispersion show Him to be a holy God,
holding nations and communities responsible to Him
under terrible penalties.

3. His grace is the other form of manifestation He has
employed. We must know Him as holy, requiring an
expression of the evil of sin as groat as can be made
through the cross, in extending mercy to sinners. We
must know Him as merciful, ready to be reconciled to
us in Christ ; as ready to make a covenant or compact
of friendship with us, a covenant containing the richest
promises of which the mind of man can conceive ; as a
hearer and answerer of prayer.

And this is the end at which He principally aims.
All the real value of nations recognizing Him is, that it
implies the personal knowledge of Him by individuals.
And He counts no knowledge of Him satisfactory and
complete, except that which leads us individually to
repent of sin, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
follow Him in the regeneration. Nations perish ; indi-
viduals live forever. Hence God attaches a supreme
importance to the personal faith of each individual. So
it is said : " God so loved the world that he gave His
only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him
might not perish, but have everlasting life. As many as

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 47

received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons
of God, even to them that believed on his name."

This is, then, the great issue to which the events of
providence are pointing. The rebellion, this series of
victories filling the nation with joy and thankfulness,
this horrible crime filling the nation with grief and dis-
may, are all revelations of God. His language in the
events which cheer and gladden you is, " I beseech
you by the mercies of God that you present" yourself
'• a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God,'
The language of an event which arouses the turbulent
emotions of the heart, exciting grief or fear or anger,
is. — Be still: hold that feeling in check, and observe
me. I have come forth from my hiding place, to show
you I am God.

Fellow-Christians, we never occupied such a vantage-
ground as now, for bringing a revolted race to its alle-
giance to God. Our neighbors are beginning to see his
presence, to recognize his will and power in passing
events For his sake, for their sakes, let us help them
onward in this direction. Filled with adoration, sub-
mission, confidence, and love to Him, let us speak of Him
in the convincing and persuasive words the quickened
heart can always supply. Oh, may this nation to-day
hear that voice as distinctly as it was heard from Sinai !
Fellow-citizens, make this a religious day, a day of
thought, of such deep reflection as becomes you as
rational beings brought into a wilderness of rugged
rocks and frowning cliffs, of desolation and death,
where you can, undiverted, hear the voice of God. Be
still.

REV. CYRUS A. BARTOL.

ADDRESS

I am unable to give, and you perhaps indisposed to
receive any regular preaching to-day. If I can but tell
you what is in the air ; if I can voice your feeling and
my own, still more that spirit of God which is ready to
be voiced by human lips, the real end of our meeting will,
however informally, be reached. I lay aside therefore
my written discourse. Though it be ecclesiastically a
festival this morning, no Romish or other rubric has a
right to prescribe our theme. I take no text save from
the Bible of providence, the great book of events, God's
finger is still writing in burning words every hour. I
accept his subject, and defer my own.

I need not even tell the youngest of you what has
occurred. How all too suddenly it was known ! How
on the wires it flashed, how in the atmosphere that over-
hangs, and in every wind that sweeps across our borders,
it brooded and was borne ! The craped and drooping
flag, the slow-sounding bell, the minute-gun told it ;
and had the ocean-telegraph, yet to succeed, only
served, the brain and heart of the world would be trem-

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52 SERMONS ON THE

bling with one sympathy. California, from our farthest
bounds, is with us in the same sensation to-day.

I shrink from naming the deed by which we are
so stirred. An actor in a theatre performs a part, in a
scene of real life, which extinguishes all the interest of
the mimic stage. What a contrast the last tragedy to
our late jubilee ! God seems to have chosen sacred
days for his messages, — on two successive Sundays
appointing celebrations of victory, — and now giving to
Good Friday and Easter a new association indeed in
Christian minds !

But, on this dark day, my purpose with you is not a
lament, but comfort. Let me try to mention some con-
solations.

First, though our chief magistrate — all of him that
could die — is dead, the nation lives. "What is
your first impression ? " asked a brother clergyman,
adding that his was, — the line must be draivn stricter
between the friends and enemies of this country. A
second said his first impression was, that an era of mis-
rule had come. I said, my first impression, after the
shock of grief, was, — though the President is gone, the
nation lives, and tvill live more vital and vigorous for
this blow. What did the madmen, that struck at the
Chief and the Secretary, so meanly — at the one from
behind and the other in his bed — think to do ? To kill
the nation, to assassinate liberty, to cut the throat of
law ? What a mistake ! This blow will hurt, not our
cause, but only the hand that struck it; and no mis-
chance to the truth be suffered by Him without whom
not a sparrow falleth.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 53

It is one consolation, too, that slavery died more
swiftly and surely by this very stroke. Most important
is it, that the act should be traced. We should not con-
nect it with any quarter without proof. But we know
its general and most authentic origin. It is not from
any individual alone, but from the barbarism of slavery.
That demon whispered in the actor's ear ! That dragon
fired his passion, and nerved his arm ! His birth and
breeding were in the hot-beds and centres of slavery,
slave-breeding, and slave-trading. With indignation for
the crime, mingles in my mind infinite pity for the crimi-
nal, whose personal guilt has what palliation depravity
so deep can find in early nurture, bitter prejudice, or
constitutional bias. He impersonated slavery itself in
that theatre, which will hang henceforth, one of the most
terrible pictures of history, on the walls of time forever.
The horror affords this solace ; that it hints the death-
agony of the deadly foe of our republic. The monster,
pursued in northern seas, is never more dangerous than
in his dying struggles. Let the boat beware, that ap-
proaches him, lest the last lashing of his tail mix the
blood of its crew with his own ! With a worse monster
than ever swam the deep, this new evidence of malig-
nity shoidd move us to keep no terms. Let this last
precious life-current it has caused to flow be the mor-
dant to set and seal the color of our eternal hatred, not
to its misguided supporters, but to itself! Now that
the assassination, which has been for four years and
more after our Head, has accomplished its end, let our
consolation be in the slavery's own unsparing destruc-
tion.

54 SERMONS ON THE

But still another consolation is in the power of jus-
tice returning to our hands. If we were going to be too
lenient ; if, to a lax and vicious good-humor, we were
sacrificing the law and honor of God, we have learned
that indulgence is not equity, and leniency is not love.
Not revenge should be our object ; for, spite of the text
that ascribes it to him, I do not believe it is God's !
Nor can we compass the absolute justice which God
alone can measure out. But, for the protection of so-
ciety, for the reformation of the criminal, for the guard-
ing and nursing of the national life, we must watch
every motion, and strain every nerve. Such atrocities
of crime as can be traced should have condign sen-
tence. Those who are responsible for the starving, in
Southern pens and prisons, of our captured soldiers,
should have due penalty. We cannot mete out the
fair desert to all who have committed treason. We can-
not hang a community. But the wicked leadership, the
official malice, should feel our express displeasure, in
the solemn sentence of the law. Let us convert what
we can, disfranchise what has sinned basely, and banish
with the mark of Cain what can never belong to us !
We are gathering power to do this. The wild beast,
which we have fought so long in the wilderness and the
woods, we are getting under. Quickly as possible let us
set up everywhere the civil and criminal courts ! What
the national stomach cannot assimilate it must vomit ;
and not keep it in the system, an indigestible and poi-
sonous lump.

The last consolation is, that God can sanctify to us
our supreme earthly ruler's death. He would not have

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 55

permitted his life to be taken, had he not done his
work. He has finished it, how well and nobly!
Perhaps he would have been too gentle with evil-doers
in the time to come. " Sic semper tyrannis," shouted the
tragic actor, after discharging his pistol, as he brandished
his blade. A strange motto for a slave state ! For a
murderer, as he slew the softest-hearted of men, a mar-
vellous cry ! Sic semper tyrannis ! What ! for him,
Abraham Lincoln, the mildest among all he was set over,
mild as May, into Avhose soul, from others' opposition or
ridicule, no resentment could get ; who never knew, in
the way of authority or manner, how to get up to the
dignity of his office ; whose fault, if he had one, was,
that he was not sufficiently stern with the vileness he
could not comprehend ; a man of the people, who waited
before he struck at crime ; a waiter on the people,
who also waited on the Lord, and harkened for the har-
mony, yet to the coming of God's and the people's voice,
— he, among whose last accents were words of kindness
to the rebellious South, he a tyrant ! The speaker on
the stage was playing indeed, though in a ferocious way.
He feigned or fearfully mistook the side tyranny was on.
Davis and Benjamin and Wigfall and Mason and Slidell
not the tyrants ? Nay, if such as they have not fallen by
any privy blow, the reason is not that they are not tyrants,
but we not assassins. Ah ! could the agents and plotters
of this ghastly crime have themselves only waited a little
while, the measureless toils of our beloved one, more our
servant than captain, might have worn him out. They
need not have been so eager to anticipate the fate for

him, toward which he was so rapidly consuming his own
strength.

But be it our consolation, that the chariot of the Lord
goes forward. He that takes hold of the spokes of its
wheels, shall not stop it. What were the gentlest lips,
that ever spoke, parted to say ? " He that falls on this
stone shall be broken ; but on whom it shall fall, it will
grind him to powder." Truly " the wrath of man shall
praise him," and " the righteous shall be in everlasting
remembrance." The " blessed martyr," that bore him-
self so meekly in the greatest station on earth, has gone
to his harp and crown in heaven.

After toil,
To mortals rest is sweet.

REV. J. M. MANNING.

DEUTERONOMY XXXIV: 4, 5.

And the Lord said unto him, This is the land -which I

SWAEE UNTO ABRAHAM, UNTO ISAAC, AND UNTO JACOB, SAYING,
I WILL GIVE IT UNTO THY SEED J I HAVE CAUSED THEE TO SEE
IT "WITH THINE EYES, BUT THOU SHALT NOT GO OVER THITHER.

So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the

LAND OF MOAB, ACCORDING TO THE "WORD OF THE LORD.

" According to the word of the Lord." Sweet
announcement to a broken-hearted nation, to-day !
" Abraham Lincoln died this morning at twenty- two
minutes after seven o'clock." That was the message
which the wires, heavy-laden with their tidings, sobbed
forth yesterday in all our pleasant places. And we awoke
from our troubled sleep this morning, and, lo ! it was
not a dream ! " According to the word of the Lord."
" Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."
We look above all human agency. "We recognize the
will that never errs nor falters, and that worketh all
things, in Heaven and on earth, after its own perfect
counsel.

" So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there."
He had brought us through the " great and terrible

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60 SERMONS ON THE

wilderness," unto the borders of our goodly heritage ; but
was himself forbidden to enter. May the same God,
who made him so much better than our fears, — such a
father to us all, — do even greater things for the Joshua
who succeeds him as the leader of our Israel ! To this
petition, every heart devoutly responds Amen! New
responsibilities sober men oftentimes. Possessing real
goodness of heart, they bend their shoulders loyally to
the unexpected burden, and display great qualities of
which they were thought destitute before. Thus a
bereaved nation prays and hopes.

How incomplete, how complete, the dear life that has
passed on ! The surroundings, the hour, the instrumen-
tality, — how painful ! Why could not the name of one
whom we so loved, whom we so tenderly revered, have a
seemlier passage to its immortality ? Thou, Lord,
knowest ! Thou dost not respect the person of any man.
" Wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person
perish." " Man being in honor abideth not." " Like
sheep they are laid in the grave ; death shall feed on
them." We had traced a resemblance, often, between
our beloved President and the great Prince of Orange, —
called William the Silent. The same devotion to country,
the same trust in a Divine Providence, the same cautious
and persevering wisdom, the same tender regard for the
people who confided in them. Oh, could not the
parallel have been left imperfect ? Must it be carried on
to the bitter end ? We loved to think that they were
alike in their patriotism ; but — poor, blinded mortals ! —
we did not foresee the dreadful event that was to make
them so much alike in their death ! Both slain with wife

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 61

and friends around them, in the moment of social free-
dom and unconcern, by the assassin who long had been
waiting for his chance to strike.

Let me quote from history, " On Tuesday, the 10th
of July, 1584, at about half-past twelve, the Prince,
with his wife on his arm, and followed by the ladies and
gentlemen of his family, was going to the dining-room.
William the Silent was dressed upon that day, according
to his usual custom, in very plain fashion. He wore a
wide-leaved, loosely-shaped hat of dark felt, with a
silken cord round the crown, — such as was worn by the
Beggars in the early days of the revolt. A high ruff
encircled his neck, from which also depended one of the
Beggar's medals, while a loose surcoat of grey frieze
cloth, over a tawny leather doublet, with wide, slashed
underclothes, completed his costume. Gerard (the
murderer ) presented himself at the doorway and de-
manded a passport. The Princess, struck with the pale
and agitated countenance of the man, anxiously ques-
tioned her husband concerning the stranger. The Prince
carelessly observed that it was merely a person who
came for a passport ; ordering, at the same time, a secre-
tary to prepare one. The Princess, still not relieved,
observed in an under- tone that she had never seen so
villanous a countenance. Orange, however, not at all
impressed with the appearance of Gerard, conducted
himself at table with his usual cheerfulness, conversing
much with the burgomaster of Leewarden, the only
guest present at the family dinner, concerning the politi-
cal and religious aspects of Friesland. At two o'clock
the company rose from the table. The Prince led the

62 SERMONS ON THE

way, intending to pass to his private apartments above.
The dining-room which was on the ground-floor, opened
into a little square vestibule, which communicated,
through an arched passage-way, with the main entrance
into the court-yard. This vestibule was also directly at
the foot of the wooden staircase leading to the next
floor, and was scarcely six feet in width. Upon its left
side, as one approached the stairway, was an obscure
arch, sunk deep in the wall, and completely in the
shadow of the door. Behind this arch a portal opened
to the narrow lane at the side of the house. The stairs
themselves were completely lighted by a large window,
half-way up the flight. The Prince came from the
dining-room, and began leisurely to ascend. He had
only reached the second stair, when a man emerged from
the sunken arch, and, standing within a foot or two of
him discharged a pistol full at his heart. Three balls
entered his body, one of which, passing quite through
him, struck with violence against the wall beyond. The
Prince exclaimed in French, as he felt the wound,
"O my God, have mercy upon my soul! O my God,
have mercy upon this poor people ! "

Such was the death, and such the last exclamation of
the great and good father of modern liberty, the son and
sire of illustrious princes, the wise subverter of despot-
isms, the champion of popular rights, to whom, more
than to any other man perhaps, the world is indebted
for free institutions and free ideas. Who can doubt,
if strength had been left our good President when the
fatal bullet struck him, that he also would have exclaim-
ed. '• O my God, have mercy upon my soul ! O my God,
have mercy upon this, poor people ?"

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 63

So alike, in the circumstances of their departure, how
doubly consoling now to trace the previous parallel
between their lives.

Listen. " His constancy in bearing the whole weight
of a struggle as unequal as men have ever undertaken,
was the theme of admiration even to his enemies. The
rock in the ocean, ' tranquil amid raging billows,' was
the favorite emblem by which his friends expressed their
sense of his firmness." Can you not, as you hear
these words, almost see the calm figure of Abraham
Lincoln in his cabinet, quietly meditating his wise plans
of deliverance, while the nation was quaking with fear,
and some were wildly urging him to take the archives
and flee ? That rock, " tranquil amid the raging bil-
lows," has sunk to re-appear in another Sea where, as we
would fain hope, only the billows of peace shall kiss it
forever more. Hear, again, of the immortal J'rince,
whom our chief magistrate so closely resembled. " The
supremacy of his political genius was entirely beyond
question. He was the first statesman of the age. The
quickness of his perception was only equalled by the
caution which enabled him to mature the results of his
observations. His knowledge of human nature was pro-
found. He governed the passions and sentiments of a
great nation as if they had been but the keys and chords
of one vast instrument ; and his hand rarely failed to
evoke harmony even out of the wildest storms." Strange
that this man should have lived three hundred years ago !
It seems to us that we saw him but yesterday, laying his
patient Innd upon a sea of warring interests and opin-
ions, and soothing them to peace and loyal co-operation ;

G4 SERMONS ON THE

moving so evenly that neither extreme was pleased at fiist,
though both were satisfied at last ; now seeming to go
beyond, and now to come short of our eager wish. Yet
true to his great duty, as the North-star to its eternal
vigil, high and calm and clear, always in his place,
shining with still and equal beam until our morning
began to dawn, then wrapping his mantle of light about
him, and joining the mighty host of the invisible.

" God alone knows the heart of man. He alone can
unweave the tangled skein of human motives, and detect
the hidden springs of human action ; but, as far as can
be judged by a careful observation of undisputed facts,
and by a diligent collation of public and piivate docu-
ments, it would seem that no man, not even Washing-
ton, has ever been inspired by a purer patriotism."
That was said of Orange, after all the history of his
public and private life had been carefully summed up.
But there is much in Abraham Lincoln — the sweetest
and tenderest traits in his character — of which we have
seen but glimpses yet. Still we feel no hesitation to-day
in placing him, so far as patriotism and honesty of
motive can go, on the same pedestal with Washington.
And then, beyond what Ave noAV accord him, how his
name will brighten as it rises out of present conflicts
into the serene sky of history, as all his little, half-
forgotten acts of love come welling up into the memo-
ries of us all; as prejudice and passion cease clouding
our vision, and we see him " travelling in the greatness
of his strength," one of the choice company of imperial
souls, garmented and crowned with the gratitude of the
ages, along the starry pathways of the immortal !

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 65

"His temperament was cheerful. At table, the plea-
sures of which, in moderation, were his only relaxation,
he was always animated and merry, and this jocoseness
was partly natural, partly intentional. In the darkest
hours of his country's trial, he affected a serenity which
he was far from feeling, so that his apparent gayety, at
momentous epochs, was even censured by dullards, who
could not comprehend its philosophy. He went through
life bearing the load of a people's sorrows on his shoul-
ders with a smiling face. Their name was the last word
upon his lips, save the simple affirmative with which the
soldier who had been battling for the right all his life-
time, commended his soul, in dying, ' to his great cap-
tain, Christ.' The people were grateful and affection-
ate, for they trusted the character of their ' Father Wil-
liam,' and not all the clouds which calumny could collect
ever dimmed to their eyes the radiance of that lofty
mind, to which they were accustomed, in their darkest
calamities, to look for light. As long as he lived, he
was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when
he died the little children cried in the streets." How
apt the characterization ! The Hollanders never said
"Father William" more affectionately than we shall
say " Father Abraham" henceforth. He did " bear the
load of a people's sorrows on his shoulders with a smil-
ing face." We do understand, at length, " the philoso-
phy of that jocoseness" which troubled some of us at
times while he lived. It was the oil lubricating the
overtasked mechanism of that patient body and mind.
It was the kind disguise, under which he concealed from
us the deep anxiety of his heart, and bade us hope on,
6*

66 SERMONS ON THE

as though he were not himself almost ready to despair.
It is plain to us now. We would not have his quaint
stories one the less. Death has touched his unstudied
manners, and lo ! they are full of an immortal charm.
Woe to the biographer who attempts to make him any-
thing less plain than he was ! Woe to the artist who
tries to soften one feature, or to take one line out of his
honest face ! We love him, just as he was. We cannot
spare one of his peculiar traits. He must be all there, —
in history, in our memory, in imagination. — forever al-
lowed to be just what God made him. And we will risk
the verdict of the ages, for God's noblest work is an
hone-t man.

In one point the parallel between Mr. Lincoln and the
Prince of Orange fails. The Prince made a tour through
the provinces, " honoring every city with a brief visit.
The spontaneous homage which went up to him from
every heart was pathetic and simple. There were no
triumphal arches, no martial music, no banners, no the-
atrical pageantry, — nothing but tho choral anthem from
thousands of grateful hearts. "'Father William has
come ! Father William has come !' cried men, women,
and children to each other, when the news of his arrival
in town or village was announced. He was a patriarch
visiting his children, not a conqueror nor a vulgar po-
tentate displaying himself to his admirers. Happy were
they who heard his voice, happier they who touched his
hands ; for his words were full of tenderness, his hand
was offered to all. There were none so humble as to be
forbidden to approach him, none so ignorant as not to
know his doeds."

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 67

" None so humble as to be forbidden to approach
him." Is there any but one man alone, of whom we
can think to-day, as Ave hear those words ? the tall,
swaying form rising to welcome the poor freedwoman
into his own family circle, — bidding her sit down in his
own arm-chair, the tears gathering in his eyes as he lis-
tened to her simple story of sufferings and wrongs, —
introducing her to his wife and friends, and waiting upon
her as carefully as though she had been a queen. " His
words were full of tenderness." That we might know
by looking into his deep, sad, almost tearful eyes. "He
was very pitiful, and of tender mercy." And the tones
of his voice, falling on the ear of distress and wretched-
ness, will linger, in sweet benedictions, until the ears
that heard them are dull and cold as his own. "A
patriarch visiting his children." Such he would have
been, no doubt, had he lived to indulge his goodness,
and to please the ardent wish of thirty millions of
people. We know what our welcome would have been.
But we cannot conceive the great love which would
have gushed up unto him out of the soft hearts of a
disenthralled and enfranchised race. His first concern
was to save " his children," then he would have leisure
to "visit" them. Thank God, we are permitted to
believe that he fulfilled the main purpose : may he
receive, in the streets of the Golden City, the offerings
of love which are due him from his delivered " children !"
" No triumphal arches, no martial music, no banners,
no theatrical pageantry," but a voice, as the voice of
many waters, saying unto him, next after the Lamb

68 SERMONS ON THE

that was slain, " thou hast redeemed us by thy

BLOOD ! "

How incomplete, yet how complete !

" No waning of fire, no quenching of ray,
But rising, still rising, when passing away !
Farewell, and all hail ! thou art buried in light !
God speed thee to heaven, O star of our night !"

How complete ! Would he not say so, as to all that
concerned his country, if his spirit could stoop for a
moment, and touch those cold lips which are sealed for-
ever ? "Would it not have filled out the utmost stretch
of his ambition and earthly hope, when he came from
his simple home in the West, had he known, — that the
State across which he was borne secretly and in dis-
guise, would come first, singing the paeans of freedom,
to lay its offerings of thanksgiving at his feet ; that he
should live to issue, in the providence of God, a procla-
mation giving manhood and womanhood to four millions
of slaves ; that he should hear of his own plain name,
tenderly spoken all over the earth wherever goodness is
revered and liberty loved ; that he should be permitted,
by his wise counsels, seconded by the able captains
whom he drew to his cause, to make his distracted
country feared and respected throughout the civilized
world ; that the very day on which his summons to
eternity should come, would be but the fourth anniver-
sary of the day on which the Starry Banner stooped to
the dust at Fort Sumter; and that on that day the
same banner, by the same hand which surrendered it,

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 69

should be lifted up to its ancient height, but covered
with more than its ancient glory, — had he foreknown all
this, would he not have said, " Lord, that will be
enough : then let thy servant depart, for mine eyes will
have seen thy salvation ? "

" Follow now, as ye list ! the first mourner to-day
Is the nation, — whose Father is taken away !
Wife, children, and neighbor may moan at his knell,
He was lover and friend to his country as well !
For the stars on our banner, grown suddenly dim,
Let us weep, in our darkness, — but weep not for him !
Not for him, — who, departing, leaves millions in tears !
Not for him, — who has died full of honor and years !
Not for him, — who ascended fame's ladder so high,
From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky !
It is blessed to go when so ready to die ! "

I will not attempt to scan the counsels of the Most
High, and to say why it is that we are thus bereaved.
Perhaps it is better for us that we should be orphans
to-day, than that he whom we loved to call " Father"
should have been spared. His paternal heart, had it
still throbbed in life, might have proved too tender for
the stern work we are yet to do. He disliked the sight
of blood. He was melted by tears. He was made soft
as woman by the tones of pleading -wretchedness. We
do not know ; but there is One who does know. The
Eye which looks through all things, may see, in the
feeble man whom He now chooses, a strong, innate sense
of justice. That man, upheld by our sympathies and
prayers, and inspired by God's special grace, may prove
to be the sword of divine justice, executing wrath upon

TO SERMONS ON THE

the evil-doers. Those who naturally exult ovei the
tragedy, may find that only mercy is slain, while ven-
geance yet lives ! Lives, did I say ? ah, yes ! and
roused up to an intensity of fury which will require all
our might to restrain ! " Traitors ! would you have for-
giveness ? go seek it of him whom your bloody hands
have slain ! " — that is the voice which now rises up
and rolls over the land, from shore to shore. But God's
way is " far above." It is his glory to conceal a thing.
" Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath
been his counsellor ? " It seems to us, even in this
bitter hour, that we see the trailing splendors of the
inner light which he inhabits ; " but how little a portion
is known of Him ? the thunder of his power who can
understand ? "

We have one occasion of thanks, in this hour of
agony, in the fact that our departed ruler was not a
king. Had he been the sovereign, who can tell what
anarchy might now ensue ? But the people are the
sovereign, and he was their minister. We may thank
God that our " king never dies." He is n^Tiad-handed
and myriad-eyed. We look for no disturbance, no be-
wilderment, for no wandering up and down, as of sheep
not having a shepherd ; but for a full and clear compre-
hension of the exigency of the hour ; for a calm wisdom,
and prompt energy, on the part of a great people, which
has successfully grappled with so many dangers in the
past. Perhaps God is giving us our grand opportunity
to show to an incredulous world, that we are indeed a
government by the people. Had not our beloved Presi-
dent been taken from us, had he lived until we were

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 71

clearly out of all our troubles, it might have been
pleaded that his personal wisdom carried us through.
Not so now. That cavil against free governments can-
not be made. We may solve the problem on its own
ground now, with no helping element to throw uncer-
tainty around the result. We, by our steadiness to
duty and firm resolve, may now prove, that, whoever
dies and whoever lives, while the people live the gov-
ernment cannot be overthrown, or falter in its course.

But ah ! poor human reason, be still. I seem to hear,
" Be still, and know that I am God. Shall I not do
what I will with mine own ? And may I not choose my
own instruments, with which to rule in the armies of
heaven, and among the inhabitants of earth ? " O my
brother mourners ! let us take refuge in the thought that
" the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Not a sparrow
falleth on the ground without your heaveidy Father.
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, and
blessed be the name of the Lord. When father and
mother forsake me, the Lord shall take me up. He
careth for us in the day of our orphanage and grief.
His arm is stronger than any arm of flesh, — an ever-
lasting arm, and it is underneath us all. He saves us
from the terror by day, and the fear by night. All
events, and the passions and outfoaming wrath of men,
are subject unto Him. He holds them and us, and our
nation and the world, all the living, and the departed
whom we mourn, in the golden net-work of his purposes
of love. And He will show us, when He unrolls that
web to the eye of " the incorruptible," that all its threads
are mercy and judgment ; and that the hand which has

72 SERMONS.

woven it through the ages, and wrapped it around all
the interests of all the children of men, has never hecn
stretched out or withholden, nor lifted up in seeming
displeasure, but to fulfil some kind and wise design.

" And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the
plains of moab thirty days : so the days of weeping and
mourning for moses "were ended.

And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of
wisdom ; for moses had laid his hands upon him : and the
children of Israel harkened unto him, and did as the
Lord commanded Moses."

REV. JOHN E. TODD

PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

The Lord eeigneth. — Psalms xciii : 1.

God cannot die. Beyond the reach of the fatal dart
of disease, or the withering touch of creeping age, or the
breath of the pestilence, or the missiles of battle, or the
arm of the cowardly assassin, He lives and reigns ; and His
throne, girt with justice and judgment, mercy and truth,
is forever and ever, and the thoughts of His heart are unto
all generations. This is our only consolation to-day.

It would be in vain for me to attempt to speak to you
at this time on any other subject than the one which fills
every mind and heart ; and yet I have nothing to offer
but the confused and bewildered thoughts of a mind which
is still too much under the influence of the excitement
and horror of the recent shock, to be able to act clearly
and collectedly.

The tidings were too terrible to be comprehended or
credited at once : the President foully assassinated in
the very presence of the people, with deliberate fore-
thought ; the Secretary of State stabbed while lying on
a si°k bed, and his attendants killed and wounded. Other

(75)

76 SERMONS ON THE

important officers of government, — the Secretary of
War, the Lieutenant- General of the United States Army,
— escaped only, without doubt, in consequence of unex-
pected detention from the President's side. Such- was
the dreadful story. It was ticked off at first, at mid-
night, to a few blanched faces, and was rejected. It
came again with stronger authority. It stared out in
grim and terrible lines from the morning papers, making
the brain of the reader to reel, and the heart to grow
sick It was told in husky and frightened tones by one
to another, and with voices choked with tears. It
leaped from face to face, pale and livid, as we never saw
the faces of the people before. It began to fringe the
flags, and darken the streets which were but recently so
gay. It began to create gloom, and a hush and loneli-
ness in business haunts, which, but a few days since,
were filled with crowds and processions and cheers and
music. It began to wail from steeple to steeple. It
broke at last from the cannon's mouth in solemn thunder.
And, at length, we begin to realize to-day, that our
beloved President is no more.

It is a terrible national calamity, such as has not fallen
upon us since we became a nation. It is an atrocious
crime such as is almost unparalleled in history. It is
universally regarded as such by the people. Never have
they been so moved. No tidings of victory or defeat,
not even the intelligence of the first assault upon the
nag at Sumter has so stirred the depths of popular
feeing. The country is swept to-day by a storm of
silent but intense and very dangerous passion.

The feelings which these heavy tidings have univer-

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. <T

sally excited, are — I mention them in the order in
which they naturally arise — horror, grief, rage, anxiety.
The country is convulsed with these emotions.

The first emotion experienced by every one upon
learning of this terrible event was one of unmitigated
horror, and it is a feeling from which we have not yet
recovered. There were various things fitted to intensify
it. We had not yet recovered from the ecstasies of
delight occasioned by victories unprecedented in modern
warfare, and which gave promise of speedy peace. The
horrible tidings found us on the heights of exultation,
and the fall in our feelings, and the shock, were propor-
tionally tremendous. It was of all things the least
expected. At an earlier stage in our national troubles,
grave apprehensions were entertained of attempts upon
the President's life. But for four years the enemy had
forborne to resort ' to assassination ; and, among the
people of the loyal States, the President had been stead-
ily gaining in the confidence and esteem and love of a}\.
It was hardly imagined that he could have a personal
enemy. The crime seemed horrible, because perpetrated
upon a person of such high position, the head of a
powerful nation, the equal of a king, or rather the
superior ; for kings rule by birthright, Presidents by the
people's choice. It seemed horrible, because it was
committed upon a man of such unoffending goodness.
It seemed horrible, because it was committed from such
a motive. Assassination is a new weapon in politics in
this country. It seemed horrible, because it was a part
of a conspiracy against a number of the heads of govern-
ment, and was executed, so far as it was executed, with
7*

78 SERMONS ON THE

such brutal and blood-thirsty ferocity. It seemed
horrible from the circumstances of its commission.
With that confidence in his fellow-citizens which has dis-
tinguished every President, and led him to dispense with
a body-guard, — a confidence which President Lincoln
had especial right to feel, he had gone with a part of his
family, unattended, to the theatre ; not that he cared to
go, but that he did not care to disappoint the people.
He had been received with unusual demonstrations of
enthusiasm and affection. Seated in a rocking-chair by
the side of his wife, and with a multitude of his people
around him, and regarding him as a father, he rested
from the cares of office. Suddenly a man, — a man ! —
availing himself of the President's confidence, approached
him stealthily from behind, and, without a word of warn-
ing, with a coward's hand and eye, fired at his head ;
then, rushing to the front, dropped upon the stage,
brandished a knife, and uttered a tragic exclamation in
his last role, disappeared behind the scenes, threaded
the familiar passages, emerged into the open air, and
escaped. Escaped ? Ah, no ! he should have committed
his crime among some people less unitedly devoted to
their Chief Magistrate ; he should have done it in the
empire of some other God. He will not escape. He
may take the wings of the morning and fly to the utter-
most parts of the sea ; he may make his bed in hell ;
but he will not escape.

The first feeling of uncontrollable horror is succeeded
by one of profound grief. It is not merely sorrow that
such a crime should have to darken the annals of Amer-
ican history. It is not merely disappointment in being,

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 79

after all, cheated out of the ruler of our choice. It is
not merely the gloom which a great crime always throws
upon a community. It is not merely a regret for the
uncertainty which this event throws upon our future.
There is in the heart of the people a profound grief
arising from a sincere and very strong attachment to
President Lincoln. And well he deserved our attach-
ment. This is not the time to enter upon any extended
or thorough examination of his life and character ; but
I cannot omit this opportunity to add my humble tribute
to his worth to those of my countrymen.

President Lincoln assumed the reins of government
when the whole country was in confusion, when whole
States were in rebellion, when the hands of the gov-
ernment were paralyzed. He was bitterly hated and
opposed by a great minority, even in the States by
which he was elected. He was ridiculed and hooted,
not only by the press of the enemy, but by that of all
Em-ope. During his administration he has felt com-
pelled to employ not a few measures which have created
very great discussion and feeling. And yet, after four
years of unprecedented difficulties and trials, he has
come forth, I need not tell you with what triumphant
successes for our country ; — I need not tell you with
what enthusiastic admiration of his countrymen, even of
many who once opposed him ; with what admiration and
respect in foreign lands, and among the enemy. Such
a record is one of which to be proud, and proves that
lie had greatness.

He was never a leader, he always followed public sen-
timent ; but he followed it with the accuracy and fidelity

80 SERMONS ON THE

of a stag-hound. Some of us would have preferred a
bolder and fiercer leader ; but, on looking back, we can
see that such an one would either have ended our strife
prematurely before its results were accomplished, or more
probably would have divided us so that we never could
have done anything. Some of us have disapproved of
some of his measures, but the result has generally shown
that he was more sagacious than we. He may some-
times have erred, in the opinions of some, from the strict
line of prerogative, but his sterling principle anci noble
purposes kept such aberrations, if there were any, from
doing harm. He was a man of the purest and highest
motives, and the strongest principle. His chief aim was
the welfare of his people, and with the heart of a true
statesman he loved all, even his rebellious people. He
was willing to sacrifice himself to any extent. He never
used his office and power to enrich himself or his family.
He did not allow himself to be governed by his party,
or to become a tool in the hands of his political friends.
He never espoused theories, but was governed by expe-
rience. He never took any notice of abuse, — never lost
his self-control. He could not be brought to a hasty
decision ; could not be turned when once decided. He
endured the mistakes and disobediences of his civil and
military officers with a patience which was marvellous.
The people had learned to have confidence, not only in
his honesty of purpose, but in his strength and sagacity
of mind. His personal character was without a stain.
His manners were plain, but unaffected and hearty. His
benevolence was unbounded. Many are the hospitals
which he has visited, the soldiers whom he has grasped

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 81

by the hand, the widows and mothers to whom he has
sent a word or line of sympathy, the personal appeals
from the humblest individuals which he has answered.
Nothing is more remarkable than his kindness toward
the colored race, and the earnest and determined purpose
with which he set about their emancipation, and yet the
subordination in which he kept this sovereign purpose to
the work of extinguishing the rebellion.

His faults, for grave faults undoubtedly he had, were
principally those of over-leniency and generosity, delib-
eration and patience, — faults which would have been
excellences in less desperate times, and which even in
these times have probably been our salvation. His vir-
tues were such as would have adorned a king. There
is another bond between President Lincoln and many of
us. a bond which not even death can sever. He was, to
all appearance, a Christian man, and in the sense in
which we understand the term. If a conversation which
has been reported really occurred, he professed to have
consecrated himself amid the graves of Gettysburg to the
Lord Jesus Christ, and to be endeavoring to live by the
faith of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.
The public documents which have issued from his pen
have certainly been remarkable, especially of late, for
their religious tone. This trait in President Lincoln's
character, so distinguishing him from all his predecessors,
rendered him especially interesting to the Christian mind,
and will irradiate his grave with a peculiar and glorious
hope. We have, at length, a President who " sleeps in
Jesus."

President Lincoln was remarkably a man of the peo-

82 SERMONS ON THE

pie, and not merely in having traits which won popular
confidence. He was one of the people. He rose from
the humblest class ; he had a popular way of talking and
writing ; he could get hold of the popular heart. It is
doubtful whether any of our Presidents, even Washing-
ton himself, was so thoroughly in the sympathies and
affections of the people as President Lincoln was. The
people themselves did not know how much tbey loved
him, till he was stricken down. There have been many
bitter tears shed in every city and hamlet of the North,
within the last few hours, over the tidings of his fall.
Strong men have wept, and been convulsed with grief, as
if they had lost a father or a brother. Oh, if votes could
raise him from that bier to that chair of state, what a ballot
would the North cast now ! The nation mourns, with a
sincere and sacred grief. No such sorrow has ever
touched the national heart. These draperies, in which
the land is dressed to-day, these solemn-tolling bells,
which speak to one another from valley to valley, from
hill-top to hill-top, give expression to no formal mourn-
ing ; they tell of a real, profound, and mighty grief.

There is a consolation in the midst of this grief; in
the return of a day suggestive to very many minds of a
triumph over death. We do not follow our noble chief-
magistrate to the grave with the feeling that this is the
last. "We are spared the sadness with which we are too
often compelled to witness the end of earthly greatness.
Gloom has no place around the grave of the Christian.
How sublime and comforting those words which seem to
float to-day over the whole land, echoing through its
numberless cemeteries and battle-fields, and lingering to

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 83

touch alike the bier of the Christian President and the
sod that covers the Christian slave, " I am the resurrec-
tion and the life ; he that believeth in mc, though he
were dead, yet shall he live" !

There is another feeling which naturally succeeds the
emotions of horror and grief; it is rage. I would not
say a word to inflame the passions and exasperation
winch are already filling the public mind. I would
rather say that which may soothe excited feelings. It is
a time for every man to lay upon himself a strong con-
trol. It is easy at such a time to be ungenerous and
unjust. Let us discountenance all violence and passion,
and seek the punishment of evil-doers only through the
legally constituted channels. Let us not be violent even
in our defence of the fallen. Let us remember that there
is one thing more sacred than even friendship, and that
is liberty. The contemptible creatures who profess to
rejoice in the work of an assassin are not worth spend-
ing rage upon ; there is nobler game afoot. Let us not
waste too much passion upon the perpetrators of this
dastardly crime ; — not that they are not deserving of
indignant condemnation, and condign punishment;
they must receive it. But their importance is not com-
mensurate with the mischief which they have done. To
lavish indignation upon them is to misuse and waste it.

Let us not jump hastily to the conclusion that the
perpetrators of this vile deed were in the employ or the
counsels of the enemy. For one, I do not believe that
the Southern leaders are too honorable to stoop to such
a deed ; I do not believe that they are too shrewd to see
that it would injure rather than serve them. But let us

84 SERMONS ON THE

no* ome to conclusions without proof. "We can wait
for the light of evidence.

But there is one direction in which the general indig-
nation may be properly turned, — always in lawful ways
and the appropriate channels, — and that is against the
rebellion, and all who uphold it. The real spirit of
secession, the kind of men who are most demoted to
it, the conduct which it inspires, are made obvious in
one more notable instance. If, in the providence of God,
this last utmost stroke of malignity shall be the means
of opening the eyes of this people to the real character
and spirit of secession and secessionists, the calamity
will not have been sent altogether in vain. It will begin
to be found out at last, that the men who are rabid with
secession, the leaders, or rather, the mis-leaders of the
South, are not men to be paroled, and let off with politi-
cal disabilities, and shaken by the hand, and feted :
they are men to be hunted down like wild beasts, and
sent to the prison and the gallows ; that secession is
not to be vanquished by leniency and kindness, but is to
be stamped out with the iron heel. This is said, not in
any spirit of vengeance and wrath, but from a solemn
conviction that the true interests of the country, and true
humanity and religion, require the prosecution of a vig-
orous policy of extermination and utter subjugation.

The spirit of secession has at last shown itself in
every possible variety of form. It is the spirit of hate,
the spirit of murder, the spirit of cowardly cruelty and
treachery, the spirit of barbarism, the spirit of hell. If
men will not renounce it now, and all connection with
it, and all sympathy with it, let them be, by the proper

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 85

authorities of course, cut down without mercy. Let our
indignation take the form, not of frantic and revengeful
passion, but a stern and united determination that this
rebellion, with its leaders, and with all who persist in
upholding it, shall be Aviped out, so that no one will
ever be able to find the stain where it was.

There is one other feeling which fills almost every
mind, — it is anxiety.

President Lincoln's life was one on which much
seemed to be depending. He had won the confidence
of the people ; he was meeting with triumphant suc-
cess ; his policy was somewhat apprehended ; his plans
seemed to be working well. But now a cloud is sud-
denly fallen upon the future. What kind of a man the
new President will prove himself, — who will be his
friends and advisers, — what policy he will pursue, and
what the results will be, — how well he will succeed in
uniting the people in himself, — and what is before us,
are matters of blind conjecture. I might present to
you some considerations of a subordinate character, cal-
culated to afford hope and encouragement ; I might
point you to the cheering features in the past career of
the new chief magistrate ; I might remind you of the
overwhelming successes already achieved, and how little
in the way of conquest remains to be done ; I might
show you, that the union and strength of feeling which
this very calamity has caused is auspicious : but of the
worth of such considerations, you are better able to
judge than I. I prefer only to remind you that we are
under the rule of a wise and benignant God, who dis-
poses and ordains all things for the best. What He
8

86 SERMONS ON THE

does we do not always know now, but we shall know
hereafter. The event which has crushed our hopes and
spirits seems to be one of those mysterious and inscru-
table permissions, with which He is wont to remind us,
that His ways are not as our ways. To us it seems a
terrible and irreparable calamity. I confess, that as I
look at it from one side and another, I can hardly find
a single bright spot to relieve its darkness. But let us
have faith in God ; I doubt not that He has some wise
purpose to serve, some great end in view, though it is
now hidden from us. I cannot fathom His motive in
allowing this awful crime ; perhaps this was needed to
bring the people to some desired point ; perhaps He had
a work to be done fitter for some other hands than those
which have done so much noble work, and are iioav for-
ever still ; perhaps He found that we were not hum-
bled enough, and has more trouble in store for us ; I
will not pretend to explain the enigma, but I am very
sure that there is wisdom and mercy in it all ; and
wisdom and mercy for us. I do not believe that God
intends anything but that which in the end will be best
for our beloved but unhappy country ; the prayers and
tears of our fathers will not permit Him to give us up to
ruin. I do not believe that the safety and prosperity of
this country are dependent upon the life of any one man,
however great and good ; much less can I believe that
they are in the .hands of an infuriated and probably
drunken actor. God is able to raise up other instru-
ments instead of those that he lays down. Moses may
lie down to die, on the very borders of the promised
land, but a Joshua shall be raised up to lead the people
in to possess it. And it is remarkable how often it

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 87

happens, in the providence of God, that the Moses dies.
It is seldom granted to the same man to guide through
the desert, and to enter into the land of promise.

For President Lincoln himself, perhaps there was no
better time to pass away. He fell in the very height of
glory. Just re-established in the Presidential chair by
the overwhelming choice of his countrymen, risen into
the profound respect of the civilized world, permitted to
see his long watchings and toils crowned with success,
to rejoice in stupendous military achievements, in the
prospect of speedy peace, and in the assured approach
of universal freedom, to fall honored by all men,
wept by a nation, in the bosom of his family, with
his cabinet around him, with a nation waiting in
tears, in the hope of the gospel, was a death be-
coming a Christian patriot, — a glorious death to die.
It may be that he could not, in a hundred years, have
found a moment in which to fall so lamented, or leave
behind him such a memory. Henceforth a humble tomb
in the capital of Illinois will divide with Mount Vernon
the homage and pilgrimages of our countrymen. Perhaps
if these mighty dead, the leaders in the two wars for
freedom, are permitted to revisit their resting-places, the
murdered President will experience the greater joy, in
finding not only his head-stone worn with the kisses of
his own race, but the sods of his grave sprinkled with the
tears of eyes that used to weep in the house of bondage.

God bless the memory of Abraham Lincoln !

God bless the President !

God in his mercy bless and save these United States
of America !

REV. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.

2 TIM. 1: 10

Who hath abolished Death.

[Indiana- Place Chapel was decorated on Easter with appro-
priate and symbolic ornaments. The entire chancel was covered
with a rich purple fabric looped to the wall at different points with
wreaths of white flowers. Over the chancel, fixed to the wall,
was a large cross surmounted by a crown, and at the side
appeared the words " He is Risen," each worked in foliage and
flowers. There were also numerous bouquets and single speci-
mens of choice flowers and plants placed at different points in the
chapel, which, with the national colors draped in mourning
drooping from the gallery, heightened the general effect.]

When Jestjs died, it seemed as if the last hope of the
world had perished. It seemed as if God had left the
earth alone, — it seemed as if there was no Providence
left. It was the blackest hour in the history of the
human race. The power of darkness was at its height.
Satan had conquered God. One man had at last
appeared capable of redeeming mankind ; he had given
himself to that work, — one man teaching and believing
a religion spiritual, humane, free ; above ceremony,
above d >gmas, above all fanaticism, enthusiasm, formality.

(91)

92 SERMONS ON THE

He was here ; the one being who knew God wholly e, tid
human nature exactly ; who could say, " I and my
Father are one," " I and my brother are one." No sin
terrified him, for he was able to cure the foulest diseases
of the human heart and soul. From him flowed a life,
a vital power, which strangely overcame diseases of the
body and the soid. He was young : he had just begun
his work. A world dying of weariness, an exhausted
civilization, a worn-out faith, longed to be regenerated.
The great auroral light of Greek intelligence had died
away. The stern virtue of Rome had ended in effemi-
nacy and slavery. The world, prematurely old, asked
to be made young again ; and here was the being who
could do it. And then men took him and murdered him.
They assassinated their best friend. Black treason, in
the form of Judas ; cowardly desertion, in his disci-
ples ; shameful denial and falsehood, in the person
of Peter ; time-serving selfishness, in Pilate ; cruel
policy, in the priests ; blind rage, in the people ;
cold-blooded barbarism, in the Roman soldiers, —
all these united in one black, concentrated storm of evil,
to destroy the being so true, so tender, so gentle, so
brave, so firm, so generous, so loving. It was the blackest
day in the history of man.

And yet we do not call it Black Friday or Bad Fri-
day ; we call it Good Friday. We call it so, because
the death of Christ has abolished death ; because evil
that day destroyed itself; sin, seeming to conquer, was
conquered. And so we see, in the death and resurrection
of Jesus, the great law revealed, that we pass through
death to life, through sorrow to joy, through sin to holi-

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 93

ness, through evil and pain to ultimate and perfect
good.

We dress our church in flowers to-day in token of this
triumph. Nature, every spring, renews her miracle of
life coming out of death. The little, tender buds push
out through the hard bark. The delicate stalks break
their way up through the tough ground. The limbs of
the trees, which yesterday clattered in the wind, mere
skeletons, are now covered with a soft veil of foliage.
Earth clothes itself with verdure, and these spring flow-
ers come, the most tender of the year. They come, like
spirits, out of their graves, to say that Nature is not dead
but risen. Look at these flowers, — living preachers!
'* each cup a pulpit and each bell a book," and hear
from every one of them the word of comfort: "Be not
anxious, be not fearful, be not cast down ; for if God so
clothe us, and so brings our life out of decay, will He
not care for you and yours evermore?"

On this day of the resurrection we commemorate the
subjugation of the last enemy, — Death. " He has abol-
ished death," says our text. Abolished it ; or, as the
same word is elsewhere translated, " made it void" ; that
is, emptied it of reality and substance ; left it only a
form; " made it of no effect; destroyed it ; brought it to
nothing ; caused it to vanish away." Death to the Chris-
tian ought not to be anything. If we are living in ter-
ror of death, if we are afraid to die, if we sorrow for our
friends who die as those who have no hope, then we are
not looking at it as Christians ought. We ought to be,
and we can be, in that state of mind in which death is
nothinq to us.

94 SEEMONS ON THE

For what makes death terrible ? First, it is terrible
because it ends this life, and all the enjoyment and inter-
est of this life. We are made with a love of life, and
God means we should love it.

We are made to be happy in the sight of nature ; in this
great panorama of sky and land, hill and plain, sea and
shore, forest, mountain, rivers, clouds, day and night,
moon and stars, work and play, study and recreationv
labor and sleep. We are made to enjoy the society of
friends, the love of the near and dear, the quiet of home,
the march of events, the changes of the seasons, the
vicissitudes of human and national life. Death seems to
be the end of all this ; and so we shrink from death. But
that is because we do not see that all these things are
the coming 03? God to us; that these are God's words
and God's actions ; that when surrounded by nature we
are in the arms of God, and that all these things are
from him, and through him, and to him. And as when
we die we do not go away from God, so we shall not go
away from all this beautiful variety and harmony, this
majestic order and transcendent beauty of creation. We
shall doubtless have more of it, know it better, enjoy it
more entirely. And so, since Christ makes us realize
the presence of God in nature, history, life, he abolishes
thereby that death which seems to come to take us from
them.

Another thing which makes death a terror is our own
consciousness of sin. The sting of death is sin. But
Christ removes this sense of sin, by bringing to us the
pardon of sin. The conditions are simple and practi-
cable : repentance and faith. If we turn from our sin

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 95

and renounce it, and then trust in the pardoning grace
of God, we are forgiven our sin. Then not only the
mercy, but the truth and justice of God are pledged to
forgive us. ''If we confess our sin, God is faithful and
just to forgive us our sin." No one need to remain
with a sense of unforgiven sin in his heart. In his
dying hour, as in his life, Jesus sought to lead mankind
out of the feeling of sin into that of reconciliation.
When he said to the sinful woman, " Go, and sin no
more ; neither do I condemn thee " ; when he said of the
other sinful woman, " Her sins, Avhich are many, are for-
given; for she loved much" ; when he told the story of
the prodigal son, to show how God sees us when a great
way off, and receives us back at once into the fulness of
his love ; when, at his death, he said, " This is my
blood, which is shed for you, and for many, for the
forgiveness of sin," he sent into the soul of men the
conviction that they could be at one with God notwith-
standing their evil.

And the resurrection of Christ has abolished death,
because it shows us that death, instead of being a step
down, is a step up. It shows us Christ passing on and
up, through death, to a larger life. It shows that when
he died he did not close his work for man, but began to
do it more efficiently. The resurrection of Jesus was
the resurrection of Christianity ; the rising up of human
faith and hope. Jesus rose into a higher life, and his
disciples then rose into a higher faith. They became
strong, brave, generous, true. Their weaknesses and
follies fell away from them. Christianity broke the
narrow bands of Jewish ceremony, and became the reli-

96 SERMONS ON THE

gion of humanity and of all time. The world seemed to
have lost everything when Christ died ; but it really gained
everything. His followers, "risen with him," " sitting
in heavenly places " with him, sought and found deeper,
higher, larger views of Christianity. And so his word
was fulfilled : " I, if I be raised up, shall draw all men
unto me."

When the awful news came yesterday morning of the
assassination of our President and of Mr. Seward, and
the other murders which accompanied those acts, it
seemed impossible to dress this church with flowers,
impossible to keep Easter Sunday with joy to day. As
on Thursday we changed a Fast into a Thanksgiving, so
it seemed to be necessary to-day to change this feast of
joy into a day of fasting and sorrow. Yet, after all, the
feelings and convictions appropriate to Easter are what
we need to-day. When we say " Christ is arisen,"
we are lifted into that higher faith which is our only
support and comfort in calamities like these.

Perhaps the crime committed last Friday night, in
Washington, is the worst ever committed on any Good
Friday since the crucifixion of Christ. It was not only
assassination, — for despots and tyrants have been
assassinated, — but it was parricide ; for Abraham
Lincoln was as a father to the whole nation. The
nation felt orphaned yesterday morning, when the black
tidings came ; for during these four years we had come
to depend on the cautious wisdom, the faithful con-
science, the shrewdness, the firmness, the patriotism of
our good President. We have all quarrelled with him
at times ; we wished he would go faster ; we wished

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 97

he had more imagination, more enthusiasm : but we
forget all our complaints to-day, in the sense of a great
and irreparable calamity. Had he been a tyrant and
despot, there would have been the excuse for the act
which we make for Brutus and Cassius ; but the chief
fault of Abraham Lincoln was that he was too forgiving
to his enemies, too much disposed to yield to those from
whom he differed, and to follow public opinion instead
of controlling it. He could not bear to punish those
who deserved it ; and the man who will suffer the most
from his death is his murderer, for had Lincoln lived,
he would have forgiven him. Simple in his manners,
unostentatious, and without pretence ; saying his plain
word in the most direct way, and then leaving off ; he
yet commanded respect by the omnipresence of an honest
purpose, and the evident absence of all personal vanity
and all private ends. Since Henry IV. fell by the dagger
of Ravaillac, no such woe has been wrought on a nation
by the hand of an assassin. Good Friday was well
chosen as the day, — a day dedicated to the murder of
benefactors and Saviours. We shall miss him often in
the years to come, for when shall we find among poli-
ticians one so guileless ; among strong men one with so
"little wilfulness ; among wise men one with so much
heart ; among conservative men one so progressive ;
among reformers one so prudent ? Hated by the South
from that instinct which makes bad men hate the good-
'ness Avhich stands between them and their purpose, he
never hated back ; reviled by the most shameless abuse,
he never reviled again. Constant amid defeat and
disaster, he was without exultation in success. After

98 SERMONS ON THE

the surrender of Lee, he caused to be written on the
Capitol the words, " Thanks be to God, who giveth us
the victory."

And so we find him mourned equally by the con-
servative and the progressive wing of the loyal people,
because he was in reality a thoroughly conservative and
a thoroughly progressive man. Both could depend on
him as truly their own leader. For his moderation was
not the negative moderation of a compromise which
balances between two extremes, but the positive modera-
tion of the large sincerity which accepts the truth on
both sides. The Conservatives knew that he was
sincerely cautious, and were sure he would never act
rashly. The Progressives knew that he was sincerely
ready to reform evils ; and though he might move slowly,
certain to move forward.

Fortunate man ! who thus exhausted the experience of
life, beginning as a splitter of rails and ending in a chair
higher than a monarch's throne ; studying his grammar
by the fire-light of a log-cabin when a boy ; when a
man, addressing the senate and people from the capitol
of a great nation ; tried by hardship, hardened by labor,
toughened by poverty, developed by opportunity, trained
by well-fulfilled duties, chosen by God to be the emanci-
pator of a race, and the saviour of a nation's life ; and
then, having finished his work and seen the end near,
crowned with the martyr's halo, to be made immortal
through all history and all time as the chief actor in the
greatest drama of modern days. Happy in life ; happy
also in the opportunity of death, for when could death
come more welcome than on that day, when, having

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 99

emancipated the slave, having conquered the rebellion,
having walked into Richmond and written a letter at
Mr. Jefferson Davis' desk, and having directed the flag
to be restored on Fort Sumter, he commanded recruiting
to cease throughout the land, and declared to Europe
that the blockade was at an end, and the war over as far
as foreign nations were concerned? Macaulay says of
Hampden : " Others could conquer, he alone could
reconcile. It was when, to the sullen tyranny of Laud
and Charles had succeeded the fierce conflicts of sects
and factions, ambitious of ascendency, and burning for
revenge ; it was when the vices and ignorance which the
old tyranny had generated endangered the new freedom,
that England missed that sobriety, that self-command,
that perfect soundness of judgment, that perfect recti-
tude of intention, to which the history of revolutions
furnishes no parallel, — or furnishes a parallel in
Washington alone."

" The history of revolutions has furnished another par-
allel in Abraham Lincoln." So says a late London jour-
nal; for even London journals have learned to look
through the rough shell to the rich kernel. Abraham
Lincoln is essentially of the same type as Washington.
Washington was born and bred a patrician, — the lord of
slaves and of broad acres. Lincoln was born and bred
a plebeian, — a man of the people. But subtract these
surface-differences and they were radically the same ;
each built up of conscience and of common sense.
Neither of them had imagination ; but that was a bless-
ing : it saved their lives. For if, in addition to the
heavy weight of real responsibilities, there had been

100 SERMONS ON THE

added the sleepless anxiety of a mind which constantly
pictures to itself all possible contingencies, they would
both have died, worn out by exhaustion. In the gallery
of the world's great men our good Abraham Lincoln will
stand hereafter by the great shape of Washington, hav-
ing as great a work to do as he, and having done it as
well.

But what shall we do without him ? What shall be-
come of us, in this doubtful Present around us, this dark
Future approaching us ? We thought our trials over ;
they seem about to begin anew. But we have learned
in these years to see the hand of God in all things, and
how He makes the wrath of the wicked to praise Him.
Still let us believe that He knows what we need, and
that this black event will also turn to good. Let the
day on which he fell teach us a lesson — saddest day in
the history of men. The death of Jesus, at the begin-
ning of his work, seemed the direst calamity that could
befall mankind. It was the loss of the one being whom
the world could not afford to lose, — the one perfect soul
the race had produced ; cut off, with his word appa-
rently half uttered, his work seemingly half done, his
life half lived, leaving only a few half-taught disciples
behind him.

But as out of that evil came so much good, so out of
this God will educe the blessings and discipline we want.
We thought our trials over ; but perhaps we need more.
The people of the North, always hopeful and good-
natured, needed perhaps another example of the spirit of
barbarism which has grown up in slavery, in order not
to trust again with power any of this existing race of
rebels. Always audacious, they were just about to

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 101

come together to tell us how the Union was to be recon-
structed. Having been beaten in the field, they were
quietly stepping forward to claim the results of victory.
But this murder has probably defeated their expectations.
As Abraham Lincoln saved us. while living, from the
open hostility and deadly blows of the slaveholders and
secessionists, so, in dying, he may have saved us from
their audacious craft, and their poisonous policy. We
are reminded again what sort of people they are.

It is idle to say that it was the work only of one or
two. When the whole South applauded Brooks in his
attempt to assassinate Charles Sumner ; when, during
these four years, they have been constantly offering
rewards for the heads of Lincoln and of Butler; and
when no eminent Southern man has ever protested
against these barbarisms, they made themselves accesso-
ries before the fact to this assassination. Throughout
the South, to-day, there is, probably, very general exul-
tation. Fools and Blind ! Throughout the North,
this murder will arouse a stern purpose, not of revenge,
we trust, or only such a revenge as will consist with the
memory of Lincoln. The revenge we shall take for the
murder of Lincoln will be, to raise the loyal black popu-
lation of the South not only to the position of freemen,
but of voters ; to shut out from power forever the leaders
of the rebellion ; to re-admit no Southern State into the
Union until it has adopted a free-state constitution, and
passed that anti-slavery amendment so dear to Abraham
Lincoln's heart * We might not have insisted on these

* See, at the end of this discourse, an extract from the sermon
preached by the writer on Fast Day, the day before this assassi-
nation, in regard to these points.
9*

102 SERMONS ON THE

conditions, — perhaps it was necessary for Ljacoln to
die, to bring the nation to the point of demanding them.

I suppose that since the beginning of the world, there
never was an hour in which a whole nation experienced
at the same moment such a pang as was felt from Maine
to San Francisco yesterday morning. The telegraphic
wires sent a thrill of horror into every city and every
large town on the Atlantic and Pacific, on the Kennebec
and the Missouri, at the same time. It was like the
blow of a hammer descending on the heart of the nation.
But such a hammer and fire welds together the soul of a
people into a strong, righteous purpose. As the attempt
of Guy Fawkes to destroy the British Parliament united
all England for two centuries against the Papacy ; as the
attempt of Brooks to murder Sumner united the free
States against slavery, so this crime will unite the whole
North to make thorough work with the rebellion, and
put it down where it can never stir itself again.

The word " assassin," it is said, was introduced into
Europe by the crusaders, and took its name from that
mountain chief whose followers devoted themselves to
murder any of his foes. He was named Ha-shish-in :
so named from hashish, the intoxicating herb, which
they took to give themselves the energy of madness.
Assassins are always madmen, — they destroy the cause
they mean to help.

To-day, then, amid our grief and tears, let us not lose
that trust in Providence which the past four years have
been teaching to this nation, — and which every Good
Friday and Easter Sunday, during eighteen centuries,
have been teaching to mankind.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 103

"Bear him, brothers, to his grave ;
Over one more true and brave

Ne'er shall prairie grasses weep
In the ages yet to come,
"When the millions in our room,

What we sow in tears, shall reap.

" One more look of that dead face,
Of his murder's ghastly trace !

One more kiss, O widowed one !
Lay your left hands on his brow,
Lift your right hands up, and vow
That his work shall yet be done.

" Patience, friends ! The eye of God
Every path by murder trod

Watches, lidless, day and night ;
And the dead man in his shroud,
And his children weeping loud,

And our hearts, are in his sight.

" We, in suffering, — they, in crime,
Wait the just award of time,

Wait the vengeance that is due ;
Not in vain a heart shall break,
Not a tear for Freedom's sake

Fall unheeded : God is true.

" Lay the earth upon his breast,
Lay our slain one down to rest,

Lay him down in hope and faith.
And above the broken sod,
Once again to Freedom's God

Pledge ourselves for life or death."

104 SERMONS ON THE

NOTE.

The following extract from a sermon preached by the writer,
two days before, gives a further explanation of the points touched
on our page : —

No doubt much remains to be done. The gravest questions
rise before us. There loom up now the questions, " what shall
be done with the rebels ? Shall the leaders of the rebellion be
punished, and how ? "What shall be done with the conquered
States ? How shall they be governed ; by military or civil power ?

In answering these questions it is evident, that, first of all, we
need guarantees that the substantial results of the war shall not
be lost — that the cure of the South shall be radical — that there
shall be no more treasons, no more rebellions. Any leniency
that overlooks this necessity is not moderation, is not generosity
— it is folly, cruelty, and crime. We may forgive; but we
have no right so to forgive as to leave the old conspirators with
power to conspire again.

What guarantees, then, do we need ? Plainly, the first is the
utter abolition and destruction of slavery in the South. We
must not have it in any form or shape. We must not allow it
to remain as apprenticeship, or as serfdom, or as pupilage. But
can this be done if we give back the power over the Southern
States into the hands of the old disloyal leaders, now made ten
times as bitter as before their defeat ? I see by the prints that
distinguished, citizens of Virginia are on their way to Washing-
ton to arrange terms for the reconstruction and re- admission of
Virginia into the Union. What do we want of distinguished
citizens of Virginia ? We want them all to keep out of the
way. We are to deal now with the real people of the
South, colored and white, not with the old slaveholding aristo-
cracy. We do not want any Hon. Mr. Hunters or Breckinridges ;
no Governor Wise, no Governor Foote, to arrange terms with.

It seems to me that the question of punishment may be en-
tirely set aside. We do not wish to punish any one. " Ven-
geance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." They will be

UEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 105

punished enough, no doubt of that. If defeat, disgrace, and
utter ruin are punishments, if contempt at home and neglect
abroad are punishments, if to have shown a want of statesman-
ship and ignorance of history, to have destroyed the peace and
prosperity of these States is punishment, they have it. We
have, no doubt, a right to punish them to any extent. The
crimes of rebellion, treason, and waging civil war without a
cause, are the blackest which can be committed by man. To
lose life, property, and all, is not too severe a punishment. But
what we wish is not to punish them, but to protect ourselves.
And the most moderate punishment which is adequate is the
best, because it is the most certain to be inflicted. And there-
fore I say, that, in my opinion, what we want is to keep all the
old rebel leaders, and old slaveholding aristocracy out of the
way, until the States of the South can be re-organized on the
basis of freedom. We want to keep them from having anything
to do with the government or control of the South until every
Southern State is as loyal as Massachusetts. Now, every emi-
nent Southern man is liable to be tried, convicted, and put to
death for treason under the law of 1790. It is true that he
can only be tried within the State where the act of treason
was committed. But when Lee invaded Pennsylvania, he com-
mitted treason there, and so did the whole rebel government, for
in treason all are principals — and the purpose of overthrowing
the government of the United States by arms is a treasonable
purpose — and every one who deliberately aids in any way that
purpose, even by furnishing supplies, is held by the Courts to
be a principal.

The punishment of death for treason is therefore hanging to-
day over the head of every man concerned in the rebellion.
They may be very grateful if allowed to escape by exile, confis-
cation, and disqualification. But looking, not at vengeance or
punishment, but simply at self protection, it is my opinion that
we might agree to waive the trial for treason, and substitute for
it these penalties : 1st. In the case of Jefferson Davis, and his
government, and all the chief conspirators, we might substitute

106 SERMONS.

for death, exile for a term of years, — say ten years. This would
be so moderate a punishment that it would pretty certainly be
carried out. 2d. Then for those who have left the service of
the United States to fight against it, and for the civil officers of
the rebel States let the punishment be disqualification for any
office, and inability to vote during ten years. So fast do things
move in this country, that in ten years, when the exiles return,
they will find no opening left for them, all their influence gone,
others in their places, the whole machinery of state re-organized,
and they all sent into obscurity and oblivion. 3d. Let all those
who have committed specific crimes, such as murdering citizens,
starving to death our prisoners, and killing colored persons in
cold blood, be tried and punished for those crimes under the
laws. 4th. Let all the common people who have been forced
and cheated into rebellion be pardoned on taking the oath of
allegiance and keeping it. 5th. Let no rebel State be re-admit-
ted into the Union till its Legislature has passed the Constitu-
tional amendment abolishing slavery in the United States.

This is my plan for reconstruction. Let the military govern-
ment of the U. S. be continued over the States, and let garrisons
of colored troops be kept in all the large towns. Let no State
be re-admitted till a convention of the people has met, revising
its Constitution and abolishing slavery, and till its Legislature
has passed the Constitutional amendment. Let the Federal
Courts for the District of Pennsylvania find indictments for
treason against every member of the rebel government, rebel
Congress, and every head officer in the rebel army. Let the
Federal Courts in Ohio, Maryland, and Missouri, do the same.
Then let Congress be called together, and modify the law, substi-
tuting exile for a term of years, and disqualification for office,
under certain conditions. So that by accepting and submitting
to the lesser punishment, they may escape the greater.

REV. GEORGE H. HEP WORTH.

MATTHEW IX: 15.

"Can the Children of the Bride-chamber mourn as long
as the Bridegroom is -with them ? But the days will come
•when the Bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then
shall they fast."

Brethren, last Thursday morning I read to you the
first part of the verse which I have chosen for my text.
It was a day appointed for fasting, humiliation, and
prayer ; but so signal had been the victories of the few
preceding days, that this people, with one accord, united
their voices in a great chorus of thanksgiving. Little
dreamed we then, that so soon the latter clause of my
text would call this mourning nation to the saddest duty
of its life.

Who can measure the great grief of this people ? The
blow came so unexpectedly, that we hardly yet know
how to express our feelings in fitting words. Each man
weeps for a friend in the loss of this our Foremost Amer-
ican Citizen. When the dreadful tidings first flashed
upon our hearts, it seemed too appalling to be credible.
We struggled against it. The wires have played us

1Q (109)

110 SEEMONS ON THE

false, we said, and we almost grew indignant with the
tamed lightning which hut a few hours before had
thrown the whole North into such a bewilderment of
joy as it told us the story of the fall of Richmond, and
which now changed our joy into the very bewilderment
of woe as it wrote upon the bulletin, " The President is
dead ! " We did not know how much we loved that
good man, nor how much confidence we had reposed in
him, until the fearful certainty of our loss assured us.
Was ever public officer so sincerely mourned before ?
Every home of the North will drop its tear of genuine
sorrow upon his grave, for mothers sent their boys to do
the dreadful work of war all the more willingly because
our commander-in-chief was so prudent, careful, and
thoughtful ; every hamlet will learn the lesson of the
hour from its draped pulpit when the preacher shall tell
how fell the unsullied patriot from the affections of the
whole people into the bosom of immortal life ; every
city, from where the Atlantic wave moans its sorrow to
the rising sun to where the Pacific sighs out its grief to
the sinking orb, testifies its respect and love for the
great man, by those emblems which sadly decorate
every public building, if not every private residence,
and which always tell us that the people's heart is
heavy.

Brethren, it is not merely a brave warrior whom
America mourns. No battle chieftain, however great
his exploits in the field of danger and of conquest,
could ever rouse such love as this we bear to Abraham
Lincoln. It is not merely the clearness and sagacity of
his mind that most we miss. No philosopher, however

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. Ill

gifted, ever rested so securely in the affections of the
whole community. No : these tears are shed for one,
who, standing on an eminence so high that few would
not be made dizzy by it, walked humbly, honestly,
and faithfully, doing the greatest work of many a cen-
tury, as a servant of the people and a servant of God.
We felt that the Republic was safe while he stood at
its head. In those seasons of intense public excitement
when great and important questions were to be decided,
— questions affecting our welfare in the distant future,
and our relations to foreign powers, — he was the calmest
man in the country ; and many and many a time, when
we have rebelled against his judgment, and given way to
passionate criticism, we have learned to regret our own
heat, and wonder at his serenity. Ah ! where shall we
not miss him ? His influence was potent within the
halls of Congress, shaping the legislation which is to
affect the country when the glad morrow of peace
comes ; it was felt in all the ramifications of our
foreign and domestic policy, tempering all decrees by
a statesmanship not more remarkable for its sagacity
than for its kind consideration of all parties ; and it
will be felt by every soldier in the field in whose heart
the destinies of his native land and the name of Abra-
ham Lincoln have been so intimately interwoven.

In 1809, in a little village in Kentucky, beneath the
thatched roof of a poor man's cottage, was born a child,
whose prospects for the future seemed very limited.
He received from his parents nothing but poverty and a
good name. His childhood was in no degree remarkable.
There were no foreshadowings of the greatness to be

112 SERMONS ON THE

achieved, and very few of those traditions of wonderful
precocity, which, in some mysterious way, cluster about
every eminent name. His library consisted of a well-
thumbed Bible, and his fortune of an empty purse.
He spent the first thirty years of his life upon that
monotonous plane on which every poor farmer's boy
lives. He spent his days in driving the team afield, in
caring for the little flock as it wound slowly o'er the lea,
and in the common drudgery which marks the lowly
position he occupied.

When he was on the threshold of middle life, a
resident of a village in Illinois, he was intrusted with
some slight responsibility by his fellow-citizens. He
was regarded with kindness because he had been some-
thing of a traveller, and an observer of men and things —
having made a voyage down the lordly Mississippi — and
because he had given his services to the Government in
the Black Hawk Avar, and shown no lack of courage, but
rather a quiet persistency and fearlessness which added
to the lustre of the shoulder-straps which made him a
captain. Having served his constituents faithfully in a
minor position, he began that slow and toilsome journey
of promotion, which is marked at every step by honesty
of purpose; and which ended, when, obedient to the will
of the North, he assumed the position of President of the
United States.

Never have I been more proud of my country than
when, gazing upon the lowly spot on which he was
born, and the straitened circumstances of his youth,
and then upward to the proud position he won for
himself, I remembered that in America we have no royal

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 113

circle from whose narrow limits the rulers of the kingdom
are chosen, while the gaping multitude look on in open-
mouthed wonder ; but that every boy on tbe continent
has royal blood in his veins, and, if he but will it, he
shall rise, forgetful of his humble origin, — nay, nay,
forgive me, proud of his humble origin, — to tbe most
responsible positions in the land. Happy country, which
sees the brilliant light of promise and of hope in the eye
of every boy ! Klessed institutions, which instead of
veneering the top of society, sends the school-book and
the prayer book to the lowliest, and electrifies the great
body of the people with an honorable ambition !

If a stranger were to offer his criticism upon Mr. Lin-
coln, I think the first characteristic of which he would
speak would be the extreme and charming Simplicity of
the man. This is so marked a peculiarity, that no one
can have failed to notice it. It is to be observed not
only in his daily talk, and in his always courteous
bearing, but also in his public speeches, and in those
documents, some of which are to become a part of our
national literature. He is the most truly Republican
President we have ever had. Occupying a position a?
important and as influential as that of the Emperor of
France, he carried to the "White House the rigid sim-
plicity of his Illinois home ; and in his endeavor to do
the work, — the arduous work of the hour, — he forgot
to put on any of the trappings or pomp of royalty.

So noticeable was this peculiarity, that many of us

regretted what we called a certain want of refinement.

We would have had him keep in remembrance that he

was President of the United States ; but he could never

10*

114 SERMONS ON THE

ignore the fact, that he was simply Abraham Lincoln.
To say what he meant, was his ambition ; and to mean
what he said, was a matter of honor. Perhaps he did
not always indulge in court language ; perhaps he was
not as graceful as some lesser men have been ; but he
always acted the wise, prudent, and manly part. He
claims our forbearance for telling an apt story ; for wit
and sarcasm, which sometimes seem out of place ; but
he has no need to seek our forgiveness for connivance
against the honor of the Republic. Grace of bearing is
a good thing ; but unswerving integrity is sublime, even
when it is awkward. For my own part, I am glad that
we have at last had a President who scorned to use the
privileges of his position for the study of the rules of
politeness ; and who, a yeoman, would not ape the
courts of Europe, but set himself at work to do a real
service for his country, at a time when she had been
robbed by so-called gentlemen of the first families, and
must be set right, if at all, by the great mass of the
common people and then representative.

If you should look this broad continent over to find a
man who came from the people, who knew their wants
and their troubles by experience ; who had been edu-
cated only in the schools of the people ; who possessed
their confidence ; who was proud of his ability to do
them good ; who had been led neither by scholarship
nor ambition to a forgetfulness of then exact condition :
in other words, if you should search this nation through
to find a man who should be a true type of the America
of to-day, you could not discover one so fit for the pur-
pose as Abraham Lincoln. In his earnestness and in

DEATH OF PEESIDENT LINCOLN. 115

his wit ; in his persistency and in his good humor ; in
all the angles of mind, character, and life, he was the
hest man of this generation to show the strength and
the peculiarities of the American.

He was pure-minded, seeking not for himself with
unhallowed amhition of conquest, but rather for his
country, with the holy ambition of the patriot. He was
pure-hearted, governed in all his dealings by a pervading
sense of moral responsibility. He was unsuspicious, —
alas, alas, brethren, he was too unsuspicious ! he believed
too much in the honor of those around him, and for this
reason he sleeps upon his bier, while a nation bends in
tears because his slumber knows no waking.

Another marked characteristic of the man was his
Religious Faith, his often avowed belief that this people
are in the especial keeping of Providence, and that it was
his duty as President to await the expressed will of God,
and then to act. He was not of that company of heroes
who win the sympathy of many by electing themselves
men of destiny ; but he firmly believed that this nation is
a nation of destiny, and was modest enough, aye, humble
enough to forget himself in his honest endeavor to obey
the people's will. I delight to linger on this part of our
great leader's character; for our public men have so often
been mere politicians, winning their way to position by
those various arts which are recognized as legitimate in
the circles where they are used, but hardly looked upon
with favor by an impartial religion, that it is exceedingly
refreshing to know that in the time of oar country's dire
necessity the highest officer of the nation was the
humblest of us all, and sought to know the will of God

116 SERMONS ON THE

before he listened to the will of man. I verily b elieve
that the religious view of the war, — and this seems to
me to be the sublimest fact of the war, — which has
pervaded every class in the community, and shown itself
in the subdued manner in which, for the last two years,
we have received the tidings of every great victory, is
greatly due to the position assumed by Mr. Lincoln.
How easily he could have stirred this people to acts of
revenge, — acts which we might never cease to regret,
— had he but issued a series of documents filled with
revolutionary rhetoric. But instead of this, America
has often been quieted in the hour of intensest excite-,
ment by the moral weight of our President's character
and words.

I do not speak thus as one who blindly praises the
dead. I have no desire to lift Mr. Lincoln into the
upper region of a faultless manhood. I have no wish to
forget the fact that he had faults, — ay, even grave
faults, — in speaking of his virtues. At a more appro-
priate time, I may give you an estimate of his relation
to, and influence upon, the age ; but noAv our sorrow and
our love are our only eloquence, and in reckoning the
qualities which so endeared him to us, we will not forget
that the tone of simple trust in God, which gave depth
and beauty to nearly all his public documents, and which
in private intercourse made so lasting an impression upon
those who were privileged to take his hand, did much,
very much, — even more than we knew at the time, to
direct public opinion into those channels through which
the popular feeling and excitement naturally flowed
towards a religious view of our national affairs. And

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 117

who can tell the benefit of such a tendency? Who
knows how much of the moral strength of this people
to-day comes from this fact ?

Many a time have delegations from various organiza-
tions gone to this First Citizen of America, and said :
" Mr. Lincoln, this people believe that you have been
providentially placed in this position for the salvation
of the nation. Every village church in the land lifts
its fervent petition in your behalf, and every loyal
man feels that he may trust you to vindicate and
establish his dearest rights ; " and the old man, in-
stead of drawing himself up to his full height, and,
in courtly fashion, receiving this language as hom-
age done to himself, has bowed his head as in the
presence of sublime duties, and consecrated the memory
of the interview with tears. Brethren, these things are
not often written in the biography of great men.

One other characteristic of which I must not fail to
speak was his Firmness. Justice has never been done
to Mr. Lincoln in this respect. He was not one of those
boisterous men who herald the fact that they have strong
wills, and who seem to act as though an unbending will
was the chief element of heroism. He had his own way
very quietly, yet he generally had his own way. He
knew the value of advice when given by his peers, and
was always courteous and deferential while it was being
bestowed. But he held it in about the same estimation
in which others of the world's best men have regarded
it, — a something which it is very necessary to receive,
but not always necessary to heed.

It is rather a peculiar fact in the history of his admin-

118 SERMONS ON THE

istration, that while so many have blamed him fcr lag-
ging behind the people, nearly all have thrown the odium
of such sloth upon him personally, as though it were
the natural tendency of his character, and not the result
of any outside influence. The future historian will give
him credit for a degree of determination in the estab-
lishment and execution of his public policy which may
sxnprise us all. He made but little noise, yet he is more
responsible for the acts of his administration than any
President we have had for many a year.

And now he is gone. Alas ! a good man and a true
man has been taken away. Steadily our love and respect
for him has increased since 1860. He early won, and
has steadfastly kept our confidence in the progress of
this tremendous struggle ; and now we may say, without
fear of contradiction, that no man ever wielded such
power, and made so few enemies. I repeat it, no man
ever wielded such power during four successive years of
blood and sacrifice, of tears and death, and made so few
enemies.

"He was a man, take him for all in all,
We shall not look upon his like again."

And now he is gone : gone when we seemed to need
him most, and when we loved him best : gone from a
good life to a better ; from the soldier's home on earth
to the soldier's home in heaven ; from his triumphs to
his reward : gone to the blessed company of great men,
who, in times past, have led the people on from sin to
liberty, and laid down their own lives as a willing sacri-
fice on the altar of progress. To-day, while we mourn,

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 119

he sits in the council- chamber where martyrs and heroes
are convened ; where are Washington, and Adams, and
Hancock, and Warren ; and he is their peer in the love
he bore his country, and the love his countrymen bore
to him.

O, exalted spirit ! if you can spare a single moment
to look from those heavenly realms which have so lately
burst upon your enraptured vision upon our bereaved
homes, you shall see how dear was the place you held
in all our hearts. You have been the people's friend,
and they put the evergreen of gratitude about your
name. Calmly you have led us, wisely, tenderly, and
yet firmly, through four times twelve months of woe.
You have gone with us into the valley of defeat,
where we have reckoned the fearful cost of life which
was marking the uncertain progress of the war. You
have been with us when the glad tidings of victory came,
and we have always found you our friend, faithful and
true ; our leader, just and wise.

You need no monument to tell your worth. These
tears are better than the marble shaft. These grateful
hearts, which will tell the children who sleep in the cra-
dle the wondrous story of the times through which we
have lived, will not forget to say that all the nation
trusted, and all the people loved you. You shall live in
the new America that is to be, and your best monument
shall be your Redeemed and Free Country. You were
with us, with kindly word of counsel, when with one
voice we cried, "Our country shall be one and indivisi-
ble," and when a million men, the flower of the genera-
tion, stood side by side to battle and to die for the

120 SERMONS ON THE

Union : you were with us when the voice of the people
was heard all over the world, saying, " Never more shall
there be slave upon this soil ; hereafter all beneath the
protecting folds of our flag shall be freemen;" and
when in gratitude two hundred thousand dusky braves
sprang to arms, and fought for the honor of the country
that dared to proclaim that they were men : you were
with us when the- weak and worn enemy flew panic-
stricken from their last defences ; when the arch traitor
fled the avenging hand of justice, and hid himself in the
swamps of the South and the depths of his own crime ;
and when the commander-in-chief of organized rebellion
gave up his blood-stained sword to the noble chieftain
who was the representative of order, union, and liberty,
— and now you have gone ! Nay, nay, we will not
believe it. You are still with us, and you will be with
us unto the end.

Brethren, we still trust in God. The meaning of this
event we cannot read. We are not robbed of our faith ;
and who shall dare deny, that Lincoln dead may yet do
more for America and Americans, than Lincoln living?

In my mind's eye, I see a stout and well-built ship,
lying a wreck upon hidden rocks. Bravely she has
breasted the storms of a score of winters. She has
battled with the tornadoes of Indian seas, bending her
proud masts until the frenzied wave threw its furious
spray upon the highest sail; she has confronted Atlantic
tempests ; and, when she came into port at last, was just
enough defaced to prove the terrible character of the
struggles from which she had come in triumph. She
has brought her rich cargo of hope and faith, of good

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 121

laws and liberty ; and, but yesterday, her cargo safely
landed upon the wharf, she slipped her moorings and
playfully unbent her sails for an hour's enjoyment. But,
alas! there were rocks, hidden rocks, in the way, —
rocks not laid down upon any chart except the chart of
Satan. She struck ; and tears filled our eyes as we saw
the noble vessel that had done her duty so well, lying
there, the victim of a mischief that could not have been
foreseen. So is it with our country to-day.

REV. W. R. NICHOLSON.

AT ST. PAULS CHURCH.

The Rev. Dr. Nicholson spoke as follows : —
My Brethren, in the extraordinary circumstances in
which Ave meet together this morning, I feel unwilling to
begin our joyous Easter services without a brief word
of introduction. I am sure you will pardon me for this
one moment's digression from our usual course.

Easter is the synonyme of joy and triumph, and
Easter-day has come. How sweetly its blessed light
has dawned upon us this morning. And yet it has
brought with it the saddest tidings, — yes, in an im-
portant sense, the saddest tidings, — which have ever
concerned us since we were a people. To-day, our
whole land is filled with sorrow and mourning ; not
only so, but with the keenest sense of national shame
and mortification. It is a dreadful public calamity, —
in every point of view a dreadful public calamity ; and
certainly it is God's call to us for a yet deeper self-
humiliation. The instinct of my heart would be to
observe this, the first Sunday after so grievous an afflic-
tion, with such outward expressions of sorrow in our
public worship as might befit a worshipping congrega-
tion. Were it another Sunday, the irrepressible grief of

11* (125)

126 SERMONS.

our hearts would require us to do so. But it is Easter,
— the Queen Festival amongst all the glories of Gospel
Truth. Oh, we cannot shove aside the grandeurs, the
heavenly grandeurs, of our Saviour's resurrection ! It is
the culmination of all saving truth ; the only light for
our darkness, the only joy for grief, the only solace in
our deepest troubles. Were it the festival of an earthly
joy, instinctively we should keep silence ; but our
Easter joys are the only medicine, as well for our na-
tional wounds, as for the individual heart.

If properly looked at, then ; if these services are not
construed as an aesthetic show, a mere parade ; if we
bear in mind that it is God's own truth which here con-
cerns us ; surely nothing could be more appropriate, even
for so direful a calamity, than are these Easter services.
Let our hearts be chastened ; let us sink in self-humilia-
tion deep and sincere ; let us lift our eyes to Jesus in
faith strong and simple, — then, all the more because of
our present national grievance, oh, all the more, strike
the very highest notes of Easter joy and triumph !

And may the benediction of our God descend and
brood over us, in these our precious services !

REV. WILLIAM HAGUE.

2 SAMUEL III: 38.

And the King said unto his servants, Know ye not

THAT THERE IS A PRINCE, AND A GREAT Man FALLEN THIS

day in Israel ?

We have come into our sanctuary to-day. with heavy
hearts and weary step. We are " bowed down to the
dust" beneath the weight of a calamity that has thrilled
a nation with anguish too deep for tears.

We are all mourners at one funeral ; not a funeral
that leaves a vacant place in any one of our households,
nor simply the funeral of a father, son, or brother, of a
personal friend, champion, or protector, but of him who
combined the interests and endearments of all these
relations in one, and whose sudden loss a nation bewails
as inexpressible and irreparable.

The hand of the assassin that smote down our Presi-
dent achieved its fiendish aim, and in that mortal stroke
inflicted a pang that throbs in the hearts of more than
twenty millions ; and though these all beat in unison,
yet as the Prophet Zachariah said of Judea in a time of
trouble, " The land mourneth, every family apart."

(129)

130 SERMONS ON THE

Every one bemoans the affliction as a sorrow of his
own.

There is sorrow in the crowded streets ; sorrow in the
marts of trade ; sorrow in the council-rooms of States,
in the school-rooms of children and youth, and at every
hearthstone of the Commonwealth : but more than that,
there is sorrow in every solitude, even in the closet of
prayer, "the secret place" where emotion is quickened
by no sympathy except sympathy with God, who knoweth
the heart's bitterness better than it knows its own.

Never, we believe, since the death of Washington,
did the countenance of every man, every woman, and
every child, over the broad area of the republic, express
a sentiment of grief so profound and keen as that which
greets us now, whithersoever we may turn.

We have heard of monarchs honored as benefactors, of
kings loved as fathers ; but it is only in a free republic
that you can ever see such signs of love and devotion as
those which now glisten in the eyes, or quiver in the
tones of stalwart men, of war-worn soldiers, of mirthful
youth, of venerable matrons ; or such as rise to heaven
in the prayers of the vast masses who kneel at their
domestic altars in the mansions of merchant-princes, in
the tenant-houses of poor laborers who differ from each
other as to color and complexion, in the rough cabins of
backwoodsmen, and in the huts of emancipated slaves.

All these, spread abroad over the breadth of a conti-
nent, make it one expanded "house of mourning," where
one bereaved family are prostrate in the expression of
a common woe ; unto all these voices the ear of God is
open, and over all these He watches with sympathetic

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 131

care, waiting to fulfil in the experiences of tHs afflicted,
storm- tossed nation that benign promise which gleamed
of old through the reft cloud of many a portentous
night in the history of Israel, " Call upon me in the day
of trouble ; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify
me."

That word is as true to-day, and as apposite to our
condition as if an angel were uttering it for the first time
in the ears of the people, as a fresh message from the
throne of the Eternal King. We are still in the keeping
of our fathers" God, to whom, in the fiery trials of the
revolutionary era, Washington was wont to pray in
forest solitudes. As the ancient Psalmist said, we say,
" He that keepeth us shall neither slumber nor sleep."
The assassin's dagger cannot reach Him. And though
the deadly stroke aimed at our chief ruler hath pierced
the nation's heart, He liveth to parry the force of the
blow, to heal the wound, to bring good out of evil,
strength out of weakness, life from death, to make the
wrath of man to praise Him, and its remainder tore-
strain.

All the events of our history, from the beginning even
until now, tally with the hopes which these promises
inspire. As a faithful woman in Israel said to her des-
ponding husband when he trembled before the manifes-
tation of the Divine Majesty, " If the Lord had been
pleased to kill us, He would not have received such
offerings at our hands, nor would He have showed us
such things as these."

Think of it. Can we, as a people, in this hour of
trial, recall to memory the last four years of devastating

132 SERMONS ON THE

war, the superhuman malice of cunning foes acting in
concert with the educated craft and wealth of the aristo-
cratic powers of Europe, the era of successful treachery
and intrigue, of victories over us on bloody battle-fields,
the taunts of triumph like those of old Philistia's daugh-
ters in Gath and Askelon, rehearsed and wafted back
from beyond the sea, and all the terrible scenes of
national agony through which we have passed, along the
verge of an unfathomable abyss, under the chosen lead-
ership of Abraham Lincoln, without being assured to
the utmost depth of our heart's capacity of grateful
feeling, that God raised him up, " made him great "
and then, at the set moment, gave him to us as an angel
of deliverance, in order to work out for us that " great
salvation " which has just now become the most amaz-
ing and hopeful spectacle of the nineteenth century in
the sight of the whole civilized world ?

No, never : these years are " years of his right hand,"
the remembrance of which has called forth over the rice-
fields and cotton-fields of the emancipated South, and in
the open streets and marts of Boston and New Yoik
alike, songs of praise that rolled in all the lyrical majes-
ty of " Old Hundred," and sounded forth the joy of
millions as in the deep thunder tones of ocean waves.

These grand anthems, God himself extemporized for
us ; He made the " logic of events " vocal with prophe-
cies of our glorious future, as sure to us as any that ever
came from Isaiah's lips, that were touched by fire from
Heaven ; and shall we now, in this hour of sudden
gloom, be tempted to yield for a moment to doubt or
fear or dark forebodings, like those who adore no God

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 133

but chance or fate, or blind, inexorable law ? Oh, no !
truth, love, faith, honor, gratitude forbid it.

I know how hard it is, at times, for the stricken
heart, under the shock of terrible and scathing bereave-
ment, to school itself (I Avill not say into submission, or
resignation, for these are, comparatively, tame words)
into joyous, hopeful, filial trust.

I know what extraordinary and mighty reasons there
are to tempt us, in spite of all the signs of wise design
and overruling Providence in the past, to treat this
event as being too ill-timed to furnish occasion for the
exercise of these Christian graces, or to be regarded as
anything else than a bad chance-stroke, full of dis-
astrous portent to the fortunes of our country.

I know how prone are the shocked sensibilities of
some to arouse the fear of strange evils that throw their
shadows before, (as a patriotic woman and mother
expressed it yesterday,) of a Reign of Terror like that
which racked revolutionary France in the days of Robes-
pierre.

I know what a dreadful depression of spirit is likely
to be produced by the contrast between the tone of the
last public service in this sanctuary and the tone of the
present ; between the glowing scene of Thursday, when
a Fast was turned into a Festival by that last triumph
of our arms, which seemed like a new proclamation
from the Supreme Governor of the world, and the more
than funereal gloom that overcasts our lurid sky at this
hour, and turns the greatest Festival of Christendom
into a Fast, to the sickened heart of Christian patriot-
ism. I know this, and I feel the oppressiveness of the
murky air laden with rumors of coming trouble.
12

134 SERMONS ON THE

In view of all these things of sad significance I know
how hard it is for some to interpret an event, that seems
so mysteriously ill-timed, into harmony with a cheerful,
hopeful view of those kind designs and wise forecastings
of Divine Providence that insure our national welfare,
and our progress in a bright national career of honor,
glory, strength, freedom, and prosperity.

Nevertheless, I know at the same time what are the
rocky grounds of our trust, and adopt the words of a
French statesman, explanatory of his own conduct, amid
the moral earthquake in his own country in 1848 : " I
believe in God ! "

All these portents of evil are but as foil to the
diamond.

I welcome the hope with which Moses inspired Israel
when he said " God made him to suck honey out of tho
rock, and oil out of the flint."

I remember the machinations of assassins against the
life of the President that were strangely baffled in those
times when success would have been fatal, and turned the
trembling scale of national destiny in favor of armed trea-
son with a force that would have mocked resistance ; when
an announcement like that which flashed over the wires
yesterday would have been the signal for the rallying of
treacherous cabals, not only in the capital, but through-
out all the North, from the St. Lawrence to the Potomac,
and from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi.

In those days of disaster, despondency, and weakness,
the faith of the people in our President was our great
bond of union, and the bulwark of our safety against
the complicated plots of open and secret foes. But now

DEATH OP PKESIDENT LINCOLN. 135

he is gone : and who fears them now ? Think of it :
who fears them now, when the rebel power is crushed,
its fortresses and cities and capital captured, its govern-
ment dissolved, and its armies flying like chaff before the
storm ?

Surely, I know the answer that your hearts indite.
What a difference between now and then ! What a
cheerful light gleams out from this comparison of the
past and the present, spanning the dense cloud of our
sorrow with the bow of promise, the sign of a covenant
of hope, well ordered in all things and sure !

The death of those we love, honor, and trust, at the
first sight, never seems well-timed ; the parting pang is
ever painful ; —

" The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear ;
The hlood will follow where the knife is driven" ;

the tear will gush from the depths of nature where
the cherished ties of life are broken : but there is a time
of separation set, and that time is adjusted to a perfect
harmony with those far-reaching purposes of our
Heavenly Father, which, as Jesus teaches in the Sermon
on the Mount, take within then scope the fall of a
sparrow as well as the fall of an empire.

O, it is a consoling truth, " Our times are in his
hand " ;

" The voice that rolls the stars along
Speaks all the promises."

And yet, in the sweep of a great calamity like this
which we now bewail, where the immediate cause is not

136 SERMONS ON THE

some mighty agency of nature, but a mere play of
human passion, or a mere freak of some perverse human
will, or some untoward thing which it was within a
man's power to have avoided, the troubled mind will
often stagger, through unbelief in providence, and lose
sight altogether of a divine, overruling wisdom.

In the view of many, the rough edge of the evil
would have been taken off, and the sense of fitness
would have been less shocked, if the President had
died by disease, or died in battle. In that, case, the
sorrowing heart more readily bows before the inevitable,
more devoutly acknowledges the majesty of the Supreme
Arbiter of destiny. But death by the hand of an
assassin that might have been so easily arrested, or
death following a certain step that might have been so
easily omitted, seems like a malign agent jarring against
the order of the universe, trampling God's law in per-
verse wantonness, provoking exasperation rather than
submission.

But then it must be remembered that this is a mere
seeming.

For God's comprehensive purposes are realized by
the free actions of men, and devils too. as well as by
the blind forces of material nature. The moral element
of free will may have ample play, without being able to
baffle the divine will any more than does the planet
which is never allowed to fly one hair's breadth from its
appointed track.

The grandest programmes of inspired prophecy have
often been pivoted upon some trifling act of man which
might have been easily avoided. The conquest of Old

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 137

Babylon, the oppressor of Israel, was predicted by
Isaiah two centuries before the birth of the conqueror,
whom God called by name, and said to Cyrus, " I have
guided thee, though thou hast not known me." Not only
was the event announced, but the funeral dirge of the
empire was written by the Hebrew seer, and the night-
scene of the overthrow described with as much of
graphical minuteness as if the prophet had lived to muse
amid the ruins of the imperial city. At the set time
her fall shook the world; and yet one obscure man
might have prevented it. A single hand of an humble
official might have baffled the Persian and his army, if
the guard at the brazen gate had attended to his duty,
and moved the bolt to its place.

So, too, within the memory of living men, the grand
crisis of European history turned upon the action of a
single will, — and that, too, the will of a man whose
name we should never have cared to mention but for
that one inexplicable decision. When General Blucher,
with his Prussians, appeared on the field of Waterloo,
to join the Duke of Wellington, and turn the tide of
battle, Napoleon was still confident of victory ; because,
as he said, " General Grouchy must be behind them."
In vain did he reason out the case ; in vain did he
watch. "Why does not Grouchy come?" He might
have come ; he had gained the bridge at Wavre ; the
way was open to him ; but he did not come. Instead
of marching forward with his counterpoise to Blucher's
force, he decided to wait for news from the field ; and
that decision, which even the sagacity of Napoleon
could not anticipate as being within the bounds of
12*

138 SERMONS ON THE

probability, gave the day to England, and brought
down the empire that had ruled the continent.

All this is after the manner of God in the evolutions
of history ; and therefore, let none of us, O friends, in
our melancholy musing upon the loss which we mourn
as the strangest catastrophe of our times, interpret the
fatal effect of the assassin's stroke as a sign that the
fortunes of our country are abandoned of Heaven, or
regard the deadly play of perverse will and maddened
passion, in the removal of the nation's ruler, as a sort
of proof that it was, in the view of right reason, an ill-
timed event, and that the overruling wisdom of God is
no longer guiding our affairs to a happy and glorious
consummation.

Rather, O friends, amid the sorrows of the hour,
the stormy excitements of the public mind, and the
extraordinary combination of events racking the land
like the vibrations of an earthquake, let our weakness
grasp the hand of Omnipotence, like the royal Psalmist
of old, who, when his timid advisers said to him, "Flee
like a bird to your mountain, for the wicked make ready
their arrow upon the string, and righteousness amounts
to nothing," answered them in those living words of
religious trust, " The Lord's throne is in the heavens ;
his eyes try the children of men ; he will rain upon the
wicked, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest : this
shall be the portion of their cup ; the righteous Lord,
loveth righteousness, and his countenance doth behold
the upright."

It is to us a fact of great significance that this nation
has a history, which the leading minds of the Old World,

DEATH OF PEESIDENT LINCOLN. 139

in courts, camps, and universities, are studying now as
never before. Hitherto they have never believed that
our republican government had enough of coherent
strength to withstand the shocks of a great rebellion.
Its strongest bonds have seemed to them but as flaxen
cords, that " sunder at touch of fire." The poor emi-
grant, who has purchased a voyage across the Atlantic
with the hard earnings of many years, and come to
build up the fortunes of his family on these shores, could
see where our great strength lay; but the princes,
dukes, earls, the educated statesmen and diplomatists
could not see it. Nevertheless, He who raised Abraham
Lincoln from the farm and forest to the chair of state,
and called him to exchange the woodman's axe for the
sceptre of authority, has revealed to them, through him,
new ideas of the nature of real power. They have seen
his sterling character put into the crucible to be brought
forth like gold from the refining flame, and they have
learned, through him, as the ruler of free men and the
representative of free labor, how great a work this nation
has to do. The story of his life is the guarantee of our
national immortality. And thus to-day, our fathers'
God, who hath wrought out our national emancipation
by this " chosen instrumentality," teaches them as well
as us, that his resources are not stinted, that " his arm
is not shortened that it cannot save" ; and that, as the
exiled prophet of Patmos said, He is " Alpha and
Omega, the First and the Last" ; the beginning is the
surety of the end.

And let it be observed in this connection, that the
event which engrosses the nation's thought at this hour

140 SERMONS ON THE

will ever stand forth as a salient point of American his-
tory. Its full effect, no human being can foretell ; but
it will surely accelerate the progress of the republic
upon its new career of a free, Christian civilization.
More than ever the millions of our land, whether of
Caucasian or African, of Teutonic or Celtic blood, are
fused into one vital nationality. " The day of the Lord
hasteth greatly," said the prophet Zephaniah to the
people of his time. Even the workers of mischief help
it forward, though not after the manner they intend.
Since the death of Julius Caesar in the Roman senate-
house, no assassination of a public man has eierted an
influence so profound and far-reaching. The murder of
Caesar was perpetrated in the name of freedom ; but it
established imperialism, and brought forth a race of
emperors, most of whom were unsurpassed as monsters
of wickedness ; the assassination of our President has
been accomplished in the interest of the slave-power ;
but will it subserve, think you, the behest of that base,
barbarous despotism? No. Although the joy of victory
may have disposed the hearts of many to favor the invi-
tation extended to some of the rebel champions to take
their places in the halls of legislation as the architects of
reconstruction, the loyal masses of the people will be
more wary now, and will not rest until the last fibre in
the heart of the slave-power shall have been crushed,
and its last " vital spark" of infernal flame extinguished.
True, indeed, our enemies still exult, — Gath and
Askelon are yet merry ; they rejoice in their secret
cabals, in their haunts of violence, in their guerilla dens,
in their resorts of revelry and song. They say Abra-

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 141

ham Lincoln is dead, " Aha, so would we have it."
But we believe in the resurrection, — yea, more; we
believe that Abraham Lincoln " still lives," that he is
" marching on," and time will soon teach them " What
this rising from the dead doth mean." Time shall soon
furnish a fresh commentary, a new unfolding of the far-
reaching sense of that saying which Jesus uttered on the
first day of the first " passion-week," in the year 33 :
" Verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall
into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die,
it bringeth forth much fruit." The world will see this
truth realized in our history. " By wicked hands " the
President " hath been slain ; " but the harvest of moral
fruitage from his death will be the garnered legacy of the
nation through the ages to come. The dark Saturday
of the Passion- week of 1865 will be the harbinger of a
brighter day, " whose sun shall no more go down."

As we trace the hand of God in history, it is a source
of comfort and strength to call to mind the proofs
evolved by the last five years, that God raised up Abra-
ham Lincoln, and "made his name great" for us ; that
the singular combination and balance of forces that dis-
tinguished his character was a special gift to this nation
for its " time of need ;" and the cheering truth that
gleams forth from this retrospect, inspiring fresh hope
touching the veiled future is, that there was the same
divine wisdom in the withdraival of the gift that there
was in its bestowal.

Over the lifeless form of our murdered leader, there-
fore, let it be ours to worship and adore, in the spirit of
the afflicted patriarch, " the greatest of all the men of

142 SERMONS.

the East" ; who, as he sat in sorrow amid the ravages of
his fields, the desolations of his home and the corpses of
his children, exclaimed in those memorable words, more
than ever weighty with an emphasis of meaning for us
to-day, " the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,
blessed be the name of the Lord."

Shall we, as a favored people, acknowledge the great-
ness of the gift, the munificence of the giver, and then
fail to see and acknowledge the wisdom that hath deter-
mined the time of its continuance? Thanks be to God,
that the President lived to see the rebel power broken
by the surrender of its general-in-chief, and to walk the
streets of its capitol. Thanks be to God, that he lived
to see the close of the day that witnessed the restoration
of our insulted flag over the ruins of Fort Sumter by the
same hand that had unfurled it there, amid many prayers,
in an hour of peril, and then had withdrawn it without
dishonor ! Thanks be to God, that the last announce-
ment of the President to the nation that he loved more
than life was, that he was drafting a proclamation of
national thanksgiving, calling upon all to unite in
anthems of praise unto Him who hath given us the vic-
tory. That call a grateful people will answer in due
time ; and in the anthems of that festival he will join in
concert with the heavenly choirs that hailed the advent
of our Messiah over the plains of Bethlehem, when they
sang : " Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and

GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN ! "

REV. E. B. WEBB

ISAIAH XXI: 11, 12.

He calleth to me out of Seir, "Watchman, -what of the
Night ? Watchman, what of the Night ?

The Watchman said, The Morning cometh, and also
the Night.

These words seem to me strikingly appropriate to
our present circumstances. Last Sabbath morning
it was my privilege to place before your minds some
reasons for thankfulness, — thankfulness to God. Then
the streets were decked with symbols of joy ; gladness
in welcome accents broke from every lip. Men's coun-
tenances were bright, as if reflecting the coming of the
morning. We clasped each other's hands with a jubilant
pulse, and every eye answered back hope, inspiration, to
the eye that looked into it.

But how changed is all in a moment ! Yesterday
morning flags were set at half-mast. Even Sumter's
flag is but half raised. As the day advanced,
emblems of mourning drooped from the highest win-
dows to the sidewalk. The President is assassinated!
Men hold their breath, and turn pale at the appalling
words. Citizens meet, and shake hands, and part in
13 (145>

146 SERMONS ON THE

silence. Words express nothing when uttered. All
attempt to express the nation's grief is utterly-
commonplace and insignificant. An eclipse seems to
have come upon the brilliancy of the flag, — a smile
seems irrelevant and sacrilegious. Even the fresh, green
grass, just coming forth to meet the return of spring
and the singing of birds, seems to wear the shadows
of twilight at noonday. The sun is less bright than
before, and the very atmosphere seems to hold in it for
the tearful eye a strange ethereal element of gloom.
Surely " the night cometh." And as we gather here
this morning, after an absence of only two days, how
appalling, in this cheerful home of our religious affec-
tions, are these wide-hung emblems of grief and anguish!
It is manly to weep to-day. The coming of the morning,
and also the night, are strangely mingled.

Had death overtaken any one of our brilliant military
leaders in the field, we should have said it was a thing
to be expected. Had any sudden reverse in the fortunes
of war visited one of our armies, it would have been a
terrible grief, but still a kind of calamity to which we
have become accustomed. Had the President fallen by
a chance shot in Richmond, or by the hand of some
lurking assassin, as he passed the fortifications through
which our hearts did not consent to his going, we should
but have realized some of our transient forebodings. But
after his safe return, and the triumph of our arms, "which
he took so much pleasure in telegraphing to the people,
we had almost dismissed from our minds any fears for
the safety of his life. And hence the telegram an-
nouncing the death of the President at such a time, in

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 147

such a way, falls upon us like a crash of thunder from
an unclouded sky.

Wearied with the duties of his high position, and the
persistent annoyance of petty office-seekers, and unwil-
ling to disappoint the people even in their unreasonable
expectations, he sought an hour's recreation in the
theatre. And what a horrible tragedy ! The actor,
having thoroughly prepared his part, and being often
defeated in one way and another from the fiendish
acting of it, finds his opportunity at last. With the
stealthy step of a base, brutal coward, with a damning
lie on his tongue, and the heart of a demon in his breast,
he approaches the generous, unsuspecting man in the
rear of his seat, and, aiming the fatal weapon with prac-
tised hand at the back of his head, puts the ball directly
through his brain, and then makes his escape through
the screens and drapery and doors with which his calling
had made him acquainted. There are no last words for
wife or children, — no word for the people's heart to
which he always spoke, — no parting counsel for a
bereaved and almost bewildered nation. The hand
that signed the emancipation proclamation hangs help-
less in death : the mind which had borne so evenly the
tremendous strain of four unparalleled years is hurled
from its throne : the great, good, magnanimous heart is
stilled : those generous lips which have spoken mercy so
often, and would perhaps, like the martyred Stephen's,
have said in their last articulate speech, " Lord, lay not
this sin to their charge," are sealed forever. The nation
has lost a father ; the human race a sincere, devoted,
and able leader !

148 SERMONS ON THE

I have had no time to analyze the character, or choose
out words to express our sense of the worth of the late
Abraham Lincoln. But I may employ, with your appro-
bation I am sure, the words used by Daniel Webster
concerning Zachary Taylor : "He has left on the minds
of the country a strong impression ; first, of his absolute
honesty and integrity of character ; next, of his sound,
practical good sense ; and, lastly, of the mildness, kind-
ness, and friendliness of his temper towards all his
countrymen."

Yes, " towards all his countrymen." He was, on the
very day of his untimely death, exerting all the kindness
of his unselfish nature, and prepared, it is believed, to
peril all his great popularity in inaugurating a policy
most lenient, most forgiving towards those who had for-
feited everything except the right to be hung. They
have put aside their friend. They have murdered the
new-born mercy which waited to bless them. No man
could if he Wi uld, and no man was disposed to do so
much for them as Abraham Lincoln.

And how the loyal people confided in him ; how im-
plicitly the common people trusted him ! The world
has scarcely seen the like. He came to the chair
of the chief magistrate from the rough experience of
frontier life. He owed his election, and the favor with
which he was received, to the belief in the minds of
the people, that he was an honest man.

And did he disappoint that confidence ? Did he show
himself unworthy? Did he ever incur the suspicion of
dishonesty, or corruption ? Or did he ever swerve from
what he conceived to be the path of duty to win popular

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 149

applause ? Never. On the other hand, so impartial
was he in selecting men from all parties to fill the high
offices of government, so artless was he in all that he
did, so transparent were his deeds, and his motives, that
by a popular vote scarcely paralleled, the people called
him a second time to guide the nation for another four
years. He knew nothing of tricks, or double dealing,
or party shifts, or crooked policies. He was a sincere,
impartial, straightforward, honest man And the people
saw it and felt it, and were glad of an opportunity to
honor him with an overwhelming repetition of their Avell
placed confidence. What a noble example is he to all
young men looking to office, or popular regard. With
no military reputation, with no brilliant oratory, with no
winning grace of manners, he was the foremost man for
the highest office in the gift of a great, free, and intelli-
gent people, once and again because he was a man of
absolute honesty and integrity of character.

And besides these unselfish, impartial, upright ele-
ments of character, there was a masterful common-sense,
a genial mother-wit, and a practical statesmanship,
which showed themselves in some of the most compact
specimens of argument, happy avoidances of difficulty,
and a thorough apprehension of popular instincts and
judgments.

He was unpolished in style, but he was profound in
thought. He was pithy in his sentences, but original
and patient in investigation : rough on the exterior but
a jewel within, —

" Rich in saving common-sense."
13*

150 SERMONS ON THE

How much we owe to his unambitious example ; how
much to his far-reaching discernment ; how much to
his good-natured hearing of all sides ; how much to
his steady calm judgment which held the scales, in the
fury and gusts of the storm, as equally poised as if in the
atmosphere of peace and calm; how much to his great
forbearance under stinging reproach ; how much to his
knowledge of, and unwavering confidence in the people
and the people's cause, God knows, but we know not as
yet. May the day never come when by bitter contrast
we shall learn how wise and safe was the confidence
which we reposed in him.

This nation mourns to-day as it never mourned before.
The statesmen of the land had learned to trust him in
the greatest exigencies ; the impatient were restrained
by his moderation ; the immovable and morose were
moved and almost brought into time by his steady, sym-
pathetic step forward ; the one-eyed were made ashamed
of their ignorance by an hour in his society ; the revenge-
ful learned magnanimity from his deeds. The soldiers
loved him, and the soldier's mother loved him, and con-
fided in him. Tha negroes loved him ; oh how they will
mourn for him ! Moses was not allowed to lead the
children of Israel into the land of peace and plenty,
neither was he allowed himself to enter it, but only to
survey its broad prospect from Pisgah's top. And so
their deliverer and ours is only permitted to come to
the border, and in these last few days catch pleasing
glimpses of the glorious, opening future. And, as wrhen
Moses died, his eye not dim and his natural force not
abated, there was mourning throughout all the camp till

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 151

the plain of Moab resounded with the cry of sires and
sons, mothers and maidens, so now there will be mourn-
ing in the camp, and mourning on the prairies, and far
away over the mountains ; but nowhere keener anguish
and disappointment than among the sable hosts whom
his noble heart and hand has freed. All men uncon-
sciously speak of him as our beloved President. And
the hand of the assassin has embalmed him with all his
virtues and greatness, and made him sacred and sublime
in our fond, loving hearts, and in the heart of the world
forever.

Were I to select some one thing by which to charac-
terize Abraham Lincoln. I should name his profound
apprehension and appreciation of the popular instinct ;
that instinct which is true to the right as the needle to
the pole, in all storms, and on every sea. He believed in
God ; he believed God was to be recognized in this war.
He believed that the set of the loyal masses, — the deep,
silent current, which bears on events is in the line of
God's advance. And, thus believing, he governed himself
by his apprehension of the people, and of God as mani-
fest in their silent set or drift. As the philosopher
learns the plans of God from an unprejudiced study of
nature, so he learned the purposes of God from the
instincts of the people. As the naturalist discovers from
the structure of the animal what its mode of life and
habits must be, so he saw from the essential peculiarities
of our government whither our future must tend. He
did not mean to be ahead of the popular feeling, for then
there would be a re-action against his policy. He did
not mean to be much behind it, for then some other agent

152 SERMONS ON THE

might be sought through which to give it expression.
And so regarding the voice of the loyal people in this
great crisis of the republic as the voice of God, he kept
his ear open and his eye attent, and marshalled his policy
not quite abreast of the divinely led masses. He sought
not to control an age thus moved and inspired, but to be
controlled by it.

Herein was his wisdom ; herein his greatness ; herein
his power. This was the secret of his success, the source
of that light which, in all coming time, shall gild with
unfading splendor the name of Abraham Lincoln.

As the Netherlands mourned for William, Prince of
Orange, as France mourned for Henry IV., "we have
lost our father, — we have lost our father!" so America
mourns to-day.

" Such was he, his work is done ;

But while the races of mankind endure,

Let his great exampla stand

Colossal, seen of every land,

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure ;

Till in all lands and thro' all human story,

The path of duty be the way to glory.

But speak no more of his renown,

Lay your earthly fancies down ;

And in the vast cathedral leave him,

God accept him, Christ receive him."

1. And now, my friends, what are the lessons of this
great calamity ? First of all, submission. God reigns ;
we are absolutely dependent and sinful. The Emperor
Mauritius seeing all his children slain before his face at

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 153

the command of the bloody tyrant, and usurper, Phocas,
himself expecting the next stroke, exclaimed aloud, in
the words of David : " Righteous art thou, O Lord, and
upright are thy judgments." This event takes us by
surprise, but the origin, maturity, and perpetration of
this awful crime was all under the sleepless eye of God.
For reasons which we cannot fathom now, nor find, He
has permitted it. Perhaps when this day, the \4lh of
April, forever marked in our calendar ; marked by the
humbling of the flag at Sumter ; marked by the exaltation
of the flag four years after, — perhaps, when the 14th of
April comes round four years hence, we shall know more
of God's designs in permitting this foul murder of our
beloved President. There is ONE whom the hand of vio-
lence cannot reach ; and lie has not led us thus far to
desert and destroy us now. Meanwhile, as becomes us,
let us bow our heads in meek submission to the divine
will- Suroly his footsteps are in the great deep ; his
designs are hidden from us in the dark : but let us trust
him; let us cleave unto him. Submitting penitently
to the rod of affliction, let us put our hand in his, and
say, Father lead, Father spare and bless.

2. A second lesson is this : Execute justice in the land.
What is the foundation of our confidence in God ? Is
it not that he will do right ? Is it not what David says,
over and over again, in all his trials, — justice and
judgment are the habitation of his throne ? And just
these — justice and judgment — are the foundation of
every throne, and of every government. I spoke on
Thursday, as far as it was appropriate to my theme, of
the tremendous mistake and folly and sin, fo» the

154 SERMONS ON THE

people of a great nation to think that they can neglect
or violate the laws of God with impunity. Just here
has been our danger. There has been a miserable,
morbid, bastard philanthropy, which, if it did not make
the murderer's couch a bed of flowers, and set his table
with butter and honey, made him an object of sympathy,
and, after a while, of executive clemency. We are weak
in our sense of justice. Why, how long is it since a
man was pursued in the streets of Washington, and,
though begging for his life, shot to mutilation ? He was
guilty of a foul crime ? Yes. But did that give the
injured man a right to murder him? Are there no
courts, no ministers of justice in the land ? But the
murderer was acquitted, with applause in the court-room.
Only this very spring, a young woman shot one of the
clerks dead in the hall of the Treasury-building. To be
sure, she said that he had broken his vow to marry her.
And when I was in Washington, a few weeks since, it was
confidently expected that she too would be acquitted.
And here in Massachusetts, not to speak of other States
now, where the punishment of murder is death, the
guilty wretch, who could brood over his infernal plan for
weeks, and finally, after several attempts on the same
day, execute it upon an innocent, unsuspecting young
man, and all for the sake of a few hundreds, or, at the
most, thousands of dollars, is allowed to live, and become
an object of sympathy. To shield his forfeited life
imperils that of every young man who stands behind a
counter in Massachusetts. Living, he is an encourage-
ment to all persons like-minded to do likewise. Yea,
saith the Governor, ye shall not surely die.

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 155

And so in regard to the leaders of this infernal
rebellion; the feeling was gaining ground here to let
them off really without penalty. They are our breth-
ren, it is said. Then they have added fratricide to
the enormity of their other crimes, and are unspeakably
the more guilty.

The punishment which a nation inflicts on crime is
the nation's estimate of the evil and guilt of that crime.
Let these men go, and we have said practically that
treason is merely a difference of political opinion.

I do not criticise the parole which was granted, though,
for the life of me, I cannot see one shadow of reason for
expecting it will be kept by men who have broken their
most solemn and deliberate oath to the same government.
It was not kept by the rebels who took it at Vicksburg.
Nor will I criticise, for I cannot understand, the policy
which allows General Lee to commend his captured
army for " devotion to country," and " duty faithfully
performed." But I considered the manner in which
the parole was indorsed and interpreted as practically
insuring a pardon ; and to pardon them is a violation
of my instincts, as it is of the laws of the land, and
of the laws of God. I believe in the exercise of
magnanimity; but mercy to those leaders is eternal
cruelty to this nation ; is an unmitigated, unmea-
sured curse to unborn generations ! It is a wrong
against which every fallen soldier in his grave,
from Pennsylvania to Texas, utters an indignant and
unsilenced rebuke. Because of this mawkish leniency,
four years ago, treason stalked in the streets, and
boasted defiance in the halls of the Capitol ; secession

156 SERMONS ON THE

organized unmolested, and captured our neglected forts
and starving garrisons. Because of a drivelling, mor-
bid, perverted sense of justice, the enemy of the gov-
ernment has been permitted to go at large, under the
shadow of the Capitol, all through this war. God only
knows how much we have suffered for the lack of jus-
tice. And now to restore these leaders seems like
moral insanity. Better than this, give us back the
stern, inflexible indignation of the old Puritan, and the
lex talionis of the Hebrew Lawgiver. Our consciences
are debauched, our instincts confounded, our laws set
aside, by this indorsement of a blind, passionate phi.
lanthropy.

Theodore Parker has a passage in his work on reli-
gion, in which he gathers into heaven the debauchee,
the swarthy Indian, the iuibruted Calmuck, and the
grim-faced savage, with his hands still red and reeking
with the blood of his slaughtered human victims. And
the idea, to me, of placing the leaders of this diabolical
rebellion in a position where they might come again
red-handed into the councils of the nation, is equally
revolting and sacrilegious. It makes me shudder.
And yet I think there was an indecent leniency begin-
ning to manifest itself towards them, which would have
allowed to these men, by and by, votes and honors
and lionizing. The soldiers did not relish this pros-
pect. They are not to be deceived by the misapplica-
tion of the term magnanimity to an act that turns loose
into the bosom of society the men who systematically
murdered our prisoners by starvation, and again and
again shot prisoners of war after they had surrendered,

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 157

— shot gallant officers, even in these last battles, after
being told that they were mortally wounded, and strung
up Union men in North Carolina because they had
enlisted in the federal army.

And now we see and feel just as the soldiers do. The
spirit that shot down our men on the way to the capital,
the spirit that shot Ellsworth at Alexandria, the spirit
that organized treachery, treason, and rebellion, the
spirit that armed those leaders to strike at the life of
the government, is the same hell-born spirit that das-
tardly takes the life of our beloved President, — is the
same atrocious spirit that seeks the bed-chamber of a
sick and helpless man, and cuts his throat, and strikes
the murderous dirk at the heart of every attendant.
We see its malignant, fiendish nature now !

And what shall be done with these secessionists, if we
succeed in arresting them before they get out of the
country, with the blood of the President, and of the
Minister of State on their hands ? Pity them as insane?
parole them as prisoners of war ? Doubtless, like the
St. Albans raiders, they have their commission from
Richmond ! Does this make your blood boil ? is this too
shocking to suppose ? Well : shall we hang them, — hang
the less guilty, and let the more guilty go free ? hang the
miserable, worthless hirelings, and let the principals
and chiefs live ? To do that is to arm men, and goad
them to take vengeance into their own hands. The
instinctive justice of the human conscience must be
satisfied by the action of government, or it will have
private revenge. There is a consciousness of right in
the masses, that will not be tampered with, in such a
14

158 SERMONS ON THE

time as this. Not the branches of this accursed tree,
but the trunk and the roots must be exterminated from
the land. Hear me, patriots, sires of murdered sons,
weeping wives and orphans, — I say exterminated !
" Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a mur-
derer, and ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of
him that is fled, that he come again to dwell in the
land ; for blood it defileth the land, and the land cannot
be cleansed but by the blood of him that shed it."
And when David died, he charged Solomon to fulfil this
divine command in regard to Joab and Shimei, who had
been too strong for him during his life.

3. One thing more : Let us face the future, and all
the solemn responsibilities of these uncertain hours with
courage. We have God on the throne that no violence
can reach, — the God who has always been with us.
" Why art thou cast down, O my soul ? and why art
thou disquieted in me ? Hope thou in God, for I shall
yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and
my God."

And then, such is the happy structure of our govern-
ment that no assassination can arrest its wheels. A
terrible calamity has overtaken us, but it will only the
more exhibit the inherent vitality of our institutions,
and the greater strength of the people.

Andrew Johnson, who now becomes the chief magis-
trate, by the mysterious providence of God, is unques-
tionably an able man. He has been much in public
life, and never failed — except in his speech on inaugu-
ration day — to meet the exigencies of his position.
Besides, he has had a schooling in Tennessee which

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 159

may have prepared him to lead at this very time.
When I was in Washington, four years ago, I heard
much in his praise. He told the secessionists, who
were just then leaving their seats in the Senate to
inaugurate the rebellion, — told them to their faces, for
substance, — "were I President of the United States, I
would arrest you as traitors, and try you as traitors, and
convict you as traitors, and hang you as traitors." And
judging from the speech which he made at Washington
after the news of the fall of Richmond, he has not
changed his mind.

We want no revenge : we will wait .the forms and
processes of law. We want justice tempered with
mercy. We want the leaders punished, but the masses
pardoned. Let us confide in him as our President.
And do you make crime odious ; disfranchise every
man who has held office in the rebel government, and
every commissioned officer in the rebel army; make
the halter certain to the intelligent and influential,
who are guilty of perjury and treason, and so make
yourself a terror to him that doeth evil, and a praise to
him that doeth good, — and we will stand by you,
Andrew Johnson.

Another ground of courage is, that the nation is a
unit against rebellion to-day as it never was before. It
is too much to hope, I suppose, that any traitor will
have his eyes opened to see the true character of the
awful work in which he has been engaged, though it
seems as if such an atrocious butchery were enough to
make him see it ; but of this be sure, that all loyal men
are united now ; and woe be to the secessionist who

160

does not instantly sue for mercy, or fly the country. I
have seen them launch a great ship. The ways are
laid, solid and secure. And then the workmen split
away, one after another, the blocks from underneath the
keel. Gradually the huge structure settles upon the
slippery ways, and glides majestically into her future
element. The two ways under our ship of state are
justice and mercy. In the providence of God, block
after block has been knocked away ; prop after prop
removed, till now, just ready to glide into the new
future, she is settling all her weight upon her ways, —
ways made slippery by the blood of the murdered
chief magistrate, and minister : ivoe, woe, xooe to him
who puts himself in the line of her course. Infinitely
better for him, had he been strangled at the birth.

Be sure, this people will mourn from sea to sea : but
be sure, also, that any provocation will bring out the
indignant, instant, sympathetic cry from every lip, " Die,
traitors, assassins, all ; live, the republic, liberty, and
law."

The God of infinite justice and mercy be our helper.
Amen.

REV, R. H. NEALE.

MATTHEW, IX: 15.

And Jesus said unto them, Can the Children of the
Bride-chamber mourn as long as the Bridegroom is -with
them ? But the Days will come when the Bridegroom
shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.

I quoted the first part of this text last Thursday, as a
reason for turning the annual fast into a day of thanks-
giving. They were used by the Saviour to show that it
was not required of his disciples to mourn on joyous
occasions, and we were then full of gladness. Sad looks
would have been sheer hypocrisy. So universal was the
feeling of gratitude for the recent victories of our armies,
that it would have been inconsistent and unnatural on
that day to have put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. It
seemed more befitting to improve the day, as I believe it
generally was improved, in songs of praise, and by the
voice of melody. How little did any imagine that the
occasion for sorrow, for appropriate fasting and universal
weeping, was so near at hand !

So great was my joy on Thursday, that, as I then said,
I did not feel in a sermon-like mood of mind, though
religious considerations were never nearer, more vivid

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164 SERMONS ON THE

and sublime, than then. They appeared however, not in
a mere clerical form, but as they presented themselves
to the whole community, and I wanted to throw off pro-
fessional restraint and speak out freely, as a citizen and
a man ; and so I went on, speaking from the heart, and
you obviously responding with equal fulness of soul, of
the great things the Lord had done for us ; we were
grateful and glad, and sang praises to the God of our
fathers, who had defeated the enemy and broken the
spear asunder. But how soon has our joy been changed
to sorrow ! I feel that there is a leaden weight upon
every heart. How can I preach to-day ? It would
seem more natural to do as did our citizens yesterday,
when news of the dreadful tragedy first came. They
took one another by the hand, pressed it in silence, and
" wept the grief they could not speak." Oh, it is hard
tc think, and must I utter the unwelcome thought, that
the President, the good President, is dead ! that
Abraham Lincoln, our Abraham Lincoln, whose name is
fraught with so many endearing associations, is gone !
He has been with us during all this war ; the thought of
him, his sagacity, his fidelity, his buoyant hope, has
cheered us in seasons of despondency. We felt secure
while he was at the helm, and were confident so long as
he was not afraid. We leaned upon him as our stay
and staff. Alas ! and is the dear man to be with us no
more ! What familiar memories come sadly up at this
hour ! It is painful to think of pleasant things, his
looks, his anecdotes, the way in which we called him.
not disrespectfully, but lovingly, by his first name. He
was one of us, a member of the family, a parent and

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 165

brother, toward whom reverence and love were sweetly
intermingled, — and must we part ?

He has gone, too, at such a time ! Just as the bright
period long looked for had come, — the war ended,
slavery dead, the rebellion put down, the long conflict
over. The good President, we thought, will now have
some rest. He will need no disguise at Baltimore,
no military guard at Washington. He can rest upon his
laurels, and walk the streets when and where he pleases.
Everybody will be his friend. No one, surely, will wish
to hurt him, he is so kind-hearted himself. When did
he ever knowingly harm anybody ? It was a comfort to
him, he said recently, that he had never said a word
or done an act that was designed to inflict a wound
upon any heart. Anger and revenge were no part of
his nature. Like his Master, when reviled, he reviled
not again, but committed himself to Him that judgeth
righteously.

But while we are oppressed with bereavement, while
a nation mourns, and the people are in tears at then-
loss, it is consoling to think that he is safe. He is
where no sorrow can reach him. As you have just
sung:

" No mortal woes
Can reach the peaceful sleeper here,
While angels guard his soft repose."

He was a good man, a truly pious man : he did not
wish to go to the theatre. The etiquette of public life
required h.im, sometimes, to sacrifice his individual
preferences ; besides, as General Grant had been adver-

166 SERMONS ON THE

tised to be there, and could not go, he was afraid the
people might be disappointed. How much was this like
Abraham Lincoln, erring, if at all, always on the side of
kindness 1 He was a man of strong religious feeling.
How impressive was the scene at Springfield, Illinois,
when he was about to leave home for Washington ! He
stood on the platform of the cars, his friends and neigh-
bors around him, and thinking as he did of the respon-
sibilities he was to assume, the trials and dangers that
were before him, it was no mere formal request that
he made, that christians would remember him in prayer.
The same request he has often made of the different
religious bodies that have called upon him at the Presi-
dential mansion.

I remember the interview which he had with the
Christian Commission at our first meeting in Washing-
ton. He received us cordially, and spoke warmly of the
enterprise. " Nothing," he said, " is better for the sol-
diers than to be followed with Christian influences," and
seemed grateful for the privilege of giving to the cause
his official sanction. " Whatever the government could
do to give to our agents free access to camp and hospital
should be done."

In referring, on Thursday last, to the many good
things we should be grateful for, I mentioned the re-elec-
tion of our present noble Chief Magistrate. It was an
occasion of gladness to the loyal people that he who
had been raised up of God to conduct us safely
through the wilderness had not been left like Moses to
die upon Mount Nebo, but had crossed the Jordan and
entered the promised land. It may seem now as if the

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 167

congratulation was premature. I do not think so. He
has in the highest sense entered upon the inheritance of
true patriotism and christian hope. Gladly would we
have honored him here on earth. We would have
carried him in triumph through our streets. But God
saw fit to bestow upon him a higher reward than we could
give. A more brilliant assembly than ever was convened
on earth shall hear his approbation pronounced, and he
shall be crowned, not with fading laurels, but with
immortal honor.

It is consoling to think, also, that not only no war,
but no political animosities shall reach him more. No
shafts of calumny shall enter his breast. I am told that
the war is not half over ; that the process of reconstruc-
tion will be attended with more difficulty and excitement
than the conflict of arms. And I confess, that, warmly
attached to the President as I am, I still felt afraid that
party divisions and party rancor might hereafter arise
that should disturb his peace. Whatever else might
happen, I wanted that there should be, in reference to
him, only kind words and kind thoughts. Such, I doubt
not, was the universal feeling of the loyal people. This
wish, at least, is gratified. His name and fame are
secure. There will be hereafter as now, and through all
time, and amid all controversies, a unanimity of profound
respect for the honesty, the moral integrity, the lofty
patriotism, the well balanced mind, and the adminis-
trative ability of Abraham Lincoln, not surpassed, if
even equalled, by that which is paid to the memory of
Washington. No man in the history, of the nation has
had greater responsibilities, and it will be the united

168 SERMONS ON THE

voice of future generations, that no public man has ever
sustained them more satisfactorily.

How will the soldiers mourn this death 1 Mr. Lincoln
was not a military man, but no officer of the government,
no military chieftain, not even the Lieutenant-General
himself, was more beloved by the army. The President
often visited them in the field. He went to the hospitals,
and was sure to take every soldier by the hand, and say
some comforting words to him. O, how their bosoms
will heave, and their heads bow in sadness, at news of
his death.

In the recent battles about Petersburg and Rich-
mond he was near to the scene of action, and his great
heart throbbed with joy at the successes that were
achieved. He seemed to forget that he was President of
the United States, in the pleasure he felt of forwarding
telegrams to the rejoicing people. He was happy in
making others glad. With what childlike simplicity he
speaks of the honor the commanding general had con-
ferred upon him, in allowing him to tell the good news !
Noble hearted man ! thy disinterested patriotism and
sublime goodness of soul shall be a treasure to this
nation and to humanity forever.

And the negroes. What a blow this death will be to
them? He wrote the proclamation of their freedom, and
enjoyed the comfort of doing it, more than all the honors
which the nation or the world can confer. He stood
against the combined influence of love and hatred, poli-
tical opposition and partisan friendship, the unfaltering
advocate of African freedom, and the stern defender of
human rights. How those oppressed and grateful ones

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 169

welcomed him in his recent visit to Richmond ! And
how the good man enjoyed it ! He wished for no prouder
ovation. Men, women, and children, poor, ragged, and
black, met him at the wharf and attended him through
the streets, weeping, laughing, praying, singing, shuut-
ing, and dancing for very joy. And he the happiest of
them all. I hope the scene will be photographed. It
will be an honor to our republic, and cause a thrill of
pleasure in the breast of benevolence and humanity the
world over.

Mr. Lincoln had strong domestic attachments. His
bosom was full of warm affection. He was so from
boyhood. He almost worshipped his mother. His
young heart was filled with grief when she died. He
was sorry, that, owing to the privations of pioneer life,
there could be no regular religious services at her
funeral. No church was nigh. No preacher could be
obtained in season. But he remembered his mother's
favorite minister in Kentucky ; and, having learned to
write, he gladly employed his newly acquired accom-
plishment in sending a letter to him, requesting that he
would, if possible, come to Indiana, and perform the
rites of religion near the burial-place of his lamented
parent. The preacher came. Abe, as he was called,
built a platform, and the sermon was delivered as
desired over his mother's grave. Some natural tears
were shed ; but filial love was gratified, and the boy's
heart was at rest. As with the boy, so it was with the
man. Home was his delight. His wife and children
Avere his choice companions. Every honor he received,
every joy that entered his own heart, he hastened to
15

170 SERMONS ON THE

share with them. No wonder, when such a husband
and father was suddenly smitten down, his family should
be overwhelmed by the dreadful shock. They will have
the sympathies of the nation, and our earnest prayers
that God will support them at this hour, and impart to
them, in future days of grief and loneliness, the con-
solations of our holy faith.

In the great calamity which has befallen us in the
death of the President, it is an occasion of devout
gratitude that the Secretary of State has been spared.

The nation is under great obligations to this officer,
for the manner in which he has conducted our foreign
relations during the perilous crisis through which the
country has passed. He has neither involved us in
complications with other governments, nor lowered the
dignity of our own. He has been wisely forbearing,
and, I doubt not, will be wisely firm. May he and his
stricken son soon be restored to health and their
country's service.

The fearful tragedy which has taken from us the head
of the nation is so recent, and our grief so deep, that we
are scarcely prepared to speculate upon its causes, or
probable consequences in the future. The immediate
perpetrator of the act will doubtless be arrested, and the
motives which led to it be fully ascertained. If found
to be in pursuance of a conspiracy on the part of slave-
holders and secessionists, it will be one of the most
signal instances of folly, as well as wickedness, ever
known in the annals of crime. No event could occur,
which, in the indignation it has aroused, could be more
terrible to the conquered foe. If secession had been

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 171

compelled to capitulate before, it will now be arrested,
condemned, and executed. If slavery had received its
apparent death blow, the work will now be made sure.
It will be struck to the heart, and pierced through and
through, nor left until it is annihilated to the smallest
fibre. If this foul assassination has been done or coun-
tenanced by men under the bitterness of defeat, they
will now find the cup filled to the brim with the water
of gall. Mr. Lincoln was disposed to be lenient; but
if, in their malignity, they dash the cup of kindness from
his hand, they must not complain if the contents of the
apocalyptic vial should now be poured out upon their
land, till it shall consume every green thing, and turn
a third part of the waters into blood. If they smite
down their best friend, they must take the consequences.
We can only say, Thou art righteous, O God, who wast
and art, and art to come, the Almighty, because thou
hast judged thus. They have shed the blood of saints
and of martyrs, and Thou hast given them blood to
drink, for they are worthy !

I do not doubt that the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth, that He will bring good out of evil, and that
this tragedy, like all other events in human history, will
be overruled for his glory. But his judgments are a
great deep. His way is in the sea, and his path in the
mighty waters, and his footsteps are not known. Some
seem to think the President was in danger of consenting
to an unrighteous compromise, and that this was a
reason why God, in his wise providence, permitted his
removal. This may be so. But I had no misgivings on
this joint. With all his good nature, he was firm.

172 SERMONS ON THE

Wherever principle was involved, no man was ever more
immovable. His was the wisdom from above, — first
pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated ;
full of mercy and good fruits ; without partiality and
without hypocrisy. He never would have consented to
any civil disabilities because of color. The hand that
signed the memorable proclamation never would have
signed any document that did not contemplate the full
citizenship of those who have proved themselves the
worthiest portion of the Southern people. He was kind
and forgiving, and I love and honor him all the more for
it. There was not a particle of hate or revenge in his
soul ; and this is one of the glories of his character, and
will be one of the brightest features in bis enduring
fame. In the dreaded process of reconstruction, I do
not believe he would have been unjust to freedom, or
have made the slightest sacrifice of principle for the sake
of peace. In the settlement of difficulties, he would
have been guided by truth and justice as well as mercy.
On no occasion would he lose his temper ; and this
perfect self-control was his shield and buckler. He
might have met representatives from the Southern people
pleasantly, perhaps told a story or two, but there woidd
have been no parley with treason, no yielding to seces-
sion ; and the leaders of the rebellion wovdd have been
put down forever.

I have confidence in his successor. President John-
son's opinions and policy are known, and will be approved
by the loyal people. There is now a roused but I believe
a healthful public sentiment, which will not be satisfied
until rebellion is exterminated and consumed, root and
branch, and its blossoms go up as the dust.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 173

Above all, let us have confidence in God. How won-
derful are the ways of Providence ! Who can fail to see
the hand of the Lord, and to stand in silent and grate-
ful adoration, as he goes forth to the accomplishment of
his purposes, in a way which we know not, and by
means which seem mysterious and awful ? The assassi-
nation of the President occurred on the day which is usu-
ally observed in commemoration of the Saviour's death.
The enemies of our Lord thought that by the cross
Christianity would be destroyed. So the authors of this
fearful tragedy thought thus to crucify and entomb our
national life, and to crush freedom and humanity through
that mangled form. But, my friends, to-day is the day
of our Saviour's resurrection ; and, as Christianity gath-
ered fresh energies in the sepulchre, and rose to new-
ness of life, so I believe that the spirit and principles
which have been embodied in our beloved and lament-
ed President shall come forth from his freshly-opened
grave with greater vigor than ever. If any are weeping
over the tomb of freedom, or of any of those principles
for which our soldiers ha-ve fought, and for which our
Chief Magistrate has been called to lay down his life, let
me say to you, Dry up your tears. Ye that are walking
to Emmaus, silent and sad, come back to Jerusalem.
The angel of the Lord hath appeared, though in a strange
form, and rolled away the stone from the door of the
sepulchre.

The tragedy which has occurred is a most impressive

warning of the nature and evil of sin. This assassin

was a young man, but what a finish of depravity he

has reached ! Reckless of a wife's bereavement, of

15*

174 SERMONS ON THE

children's tears, of a nation's grief; reckless of God,
and reckless of himself. Such recklessness is traceable
in part to his diseased imagination. He lived on airy
and depraved fancies. He was an actor, and craved for
some tragic scene. He imagined it quite theatrical, no
doubt, to utter the words, " Sic semper tyrannis," as
he sprang, brandishing his dagger, from the scene of
murder. It is traceable, also, to the excitement of
liquor ; but it all comes from sin. This is the root of the
whole. The heart's depravity grows up sometimes in
the form of treason, and sometimes shows itself in other
forms, — profaneness, drunkenness, and murder; but it
is itself the father of all evil. Whoever cherishes it in
any form has the devil, and hell itself, in his own soul.
Depraved passions within are sure to tear and rend their
victim, or break forth in flames of unquenchable fire.

Let me, in conclusion, refer to one of the most
interesting incidents in the history of our departed
President. At the consecration of the Soldiers' Ceme-
tery at Gettysburg, after the eloquent address of Mr.
Everett (alas ! that he, too, is gone), Mr. Lincoln made
a few most impressive remarks. He said that the best
way to honor the heroes that had fallen on that bloody
field was to consecrate ourselves more fully to the cause
for which they bled. There was another thought within,
he afterwards remarked, in a private conversation ; and
it was, that he should himself consecrate his own heart
to God. He hoped, he said, that through divine
assistance he had done this ; and thus had arisen in his
bosom the sweet, precious, sublime emotions of a new
and spiritual life. It is well, my friends, that we should

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 175

manifest our grief under this great and oppressive
bereavement : we cannot and ought not to restrain our
tears. It is right that tokens of mourning should be
hung out from every dwelling. The whole nation and
foreign lands will unite in doing honor to the distin-
guished dead. But no higher honor can be paid to the
memory of Abraham Lincoln than to imitate his example
in giving ourselves more fully to the cause in which he
fell a martyr, and individually in prayer, and on bended
knee, to consecrate our own heart to God.

REV. HENRY W. FOOTE,

ADDRESS SPOKEN AT KING'S CHAPEL,

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 1865.

We are gathered here in this solemn service, that we
may have the last sad satisfaction of joining with a
whole nation in paying every rite of respect and honor
and veneration to him whose mortal part is this day
committed to the tomb. Our hearts, so recently, alas !
throbbing with an exultant sense of security in the
blessed assurance of approaching peace, have been
quickly clothed again in the habit of anguish so famil-
iar, but now in a sackcloth blacker than the loss of
many battles could have brought, whose hues of mourn-
ing must hereafter darken all our lives. Not even vic-
tory can come with notes so triumphant as to hush the
wail of our grief for the leader who gathered our armies
and chose our generals, and with patient heart brought
us to the very gates of entire triumph ; nor even can
God's whitest angel of peace return, save with tear-
dimmed eyes, and the disquiet of a mighty sorrow.
But the very greatness and permanence of our emotions
forbid us from trying to put them into speech. In this

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180 SERMONS ON THE

hour, the sob of a nation's overwhelming bereavement
fills our ears and our hearts, and best tells the story of
our loss. And, under the shadow and horror of a gigan-
tic crime, we would fain learn the mysterious lesson of
Providence in silence. ^Be still, and know that I am
God." Yet these services of sacred commemoration
would seem prematurely closed, did we not try to gather
up their meaning into brief and simple words. We need
to go out from this house of prayer into an atmosphere
of faith and prayer ; not into deeper and more hopeless
grief. And he, — the good, the great man, whom we
desire to honor by doing as he would have us, — could he
open those lips forever silent, would bid us carry hence
stronger and higher purposes with which to withstand
the cloud of sorrow that has settled down over the land
he loved so well. He would bid us say little of him,
but much of the great cause. He would bid us forget
the murderous deed by which one foul hand has brought
darkness upon twenty million loyal hearts, and remem-
ber only that in this place we have been uplifted, by
communion with God's Spirit, into a truer allegiance to
the principles of freedom and justice, of mercy and
peace, as whose embodiment and representative he
stood before the world. We cannot, indeed, turn thus
aside from the contemplation of those qualities which
made him what he was. The man stands before us,
whichever way we turn, so identified with these great
and uplifting themes, that, when we mention them, we
must perforce think of him. He stands forever in his-
tory their illustrious representative, giving them honor,
and receiving honor from them.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 181

Not here in the short space which remains for us ere
we rise, and go in spirit with those who bear what was
mortal of our President to his burial, — nor now, when
we are in the very presence of death, can eulogies be
spoken. TJiat can be safely left for History, who will
find time enough in succeeding generations, and room
enough on the scanty roll of her greatest names, where
his henceforward stands forever written.

But, even here and now, the tho light of what he did,
or had a part in. — of what he was, — and of what he
will be in the influence of example, is in all our hearts.
Out of the fulness of such thoughts, let us try to gather
up the lessons which we wish to carry hence.

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the
United States, will be remembered as long as the annals
of this nation endure, as the ruler, who, under God,
guided us, through four years of a terrible civil war, to
the very borders of the peaceful restoration of national
unity, under the one lawful government of the land.
How the heart goes back (as we think of this, his
mighty work) over all the varying anxieties and mis-
givings,— the public calamities and the private sorrows,
— the alternations of success and defeat, — the vast pro-
blems of public policy, — the intricate relations with
foreign powers, — which have filled the years with a
weary weight. They have been hard to carry, for us all.
They have seemed longer to those who were in the fierce
current and whirling eddies of the time — as who was
not? — longer than a lifetime of peace. But he who
was held responsible for everything which went wrong ;
who stood in the central place of all, and held all the
16

182 SERMONS ON THE

countless threads in his hand ; yes, who gathered them
all up in his heart, — with what a crushing burden have
the years rested upon him ! No wonder that men said,
the other day, at Richmond, that he looked utterly worn
out. The wonder is, how with twenty lives he could
have endured so long. The most responsible place in
the gift of any people it devolved upon him to fill, when
its responsibilities were increased five hundred fold ;
when friends were few, and hostile critics too many to
be numbered, and all the way before us was dark with
unknown perils. And he has filled it, through good
report and through evil report, silencing his opponents,
one by one, and changing them to friends, until, when
he died, no tongue was mute to speak his praise. Has
there ever before been a recorded instance of a man
coming to power without experience, and almost un-
known, guiding a nation through the shock and strain of
a vast war, welding them continually into greater unanimi-
ty of purpose, and gaining constantly on then- respect
and affection ? In all history, he is the first example.
It will stand written against his name, that he was the
means, through God, of arousing a great people to a
real national life. Look at it beforehand, and we
should have called it impossible. There was a time — and
not so long ago — when men doubted whether, under our
institutions, there could be a genuine loyalty. Surely
he was a providential man, to whom it was given to
wake that feeling in the public heart. He has waked it,
and kept it living, because it was in the deepest place of
his own heart. It spoke in that call, after the fall of
Sumter, which made the nation spring to its feet. It

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 183

held him up, when, through the watches of thai July-
night, he heard the ceaseless tramp, across the Long
Bridge, of the army retreating from Bull-Run. And
through many reverses since, when hope deferred made
the heart sick, (need I name the battles and retreats
which are written on our remembrance in characters of
blood ?) it sustained him unfaltering.

The people wrought in him, and he again wrought in
the people, a sublime faith in our national ideas. And
that was work enough for any man. However men may
differ about the Avisdom or expediency of this measure
or of that, — and it would be strange if in such a time a
man had not committed grave mistakes again and again,
— none can doubt that he has done this one transcend-
ent work of strengthening the spirit of nationality, with-
out which all else were vain ; with which all else must
in the end go well. This being granted, all the detail
of questions about special acts can be let pass. It would
be an impertinence to descend to them in this hour of
our solemn mourning. It is enough to claim our ever-
lasting gratitude that he has done this work : and
especially because this national spirit, so purified and
deepened, has become more and more imbued with the
ideas of justice and liberty. He, indeed, would be the
last to claim that he led the ivay in this. He has the
truer glory of having followed the popular will, and of
having caused these ideas, already accepted by the
people, to become a part of their fundamental law. And
so it comes, that, wherever the word Freedom is spoken,
there his name will be uttered with benedictions.
Through him, the starry flag has come to shine

184 SERMONS ON THE

undimmed by oppress1 on. That hapless race, who sat
in bondage so long, have learned to recognize him as
their great deliverer, and to lift then- hands in prayer for
him toward heaven. They will feel that now they have
lost their truest friend. If we carry from these funeral
rites a quicker heart for the demands of justice, — a
more living love of human freedom, and a steadfast pur-
pose to do our part in the great work of re-organizing
the society of the South on a truer basis, — we shall bear
the best witness to the reality of our sorrow, and the
sincerity of our affection.

But this work, wrought on the spirit of the people and
in our fundamental law, could never have been accom-
plished save by such a man as he. A man of the people,
through and through, he has had entire faith in the
people. And this faith has been his tower of strength.
Out of the hardships of his early training, he brought a
heart thoroughly in sympathy with the common people.
Add to this the qualities peculiarly developed by that
wild, frontier life, and which were his to an eminent
degree by natural endowment ; that strong, plain, good
sense ; that practical shrewdness ; the power of ready
adaptation to unforeseen emergencies : add that capa-
city for continual growth in character, which he has
clearly manifested, and those qualities which have been
the very ground-work of his character ; the absolute
honesty, the brave simplicity, the manly tenacity of pur-
pose, the power of true and single devotion to a great
cause, — and where, in all the records of the past, has
ever risen one who seemed more providentially prepared
for his great place, than he? Yet, with all this, so far

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 185

was he from being stern, as we are apt to think a leader
must be, — so far from the rugged hardness of character
which we attribute to the rude civilization where his
boyhood and youth were spent, — that we have felt at
times that he erred on the side of gentleness. The
object of such contumely and violent hate as no other in
our history has ever had to bear, it never cast even a
shadow over his spirit. What nobleness of heart, what
grand magnanimity, has it not required to keep
him utterly free from words of unkindness or thoughts
of hate, so that the words of kindly good-will toward bis
enemies, which he spoke on the last afternoon of his life,
came out of the transparent depths of a soul into which
no bitterness had ever entered ! And so it came, that,
more and more, the nation has felt that it could trust
him to the uttermost, and love him to the fullest. Here
in our need, was a genuine man, — when " a man was
more precious than fine gold, even a man than the
precious gold of Ophir." Gradually all hostile tongues
have been stilled, and those who thought him too fast
or too slow, learned to think his judgment safe and wise.
So, too, with that criticism of his homely Western speech,
— his unsophisticated ways, — as beneath the dignity of
his great office. We have learned that character is a
jewel beyond price, — and having that, we have more
and more learned to be grateful.

Shall I speak of those other qualities which so
strongly marked his character ; of that fearlessness
which could walk composedly in the streets of Rich-
mond with a meagre body-guard of six sailors; and
which, in a different manifestation, has enabled him to
16*

186 SERMONS ON THE

stand again and again, in the four years past, almost
alone in unpopular solitude on that height of place
where the cold wind of criticism blows sharp and keen;
or of that sublime self-forgetfulness which labored on
for the single end of his country's welfare, which never
sought to lay hold on the laurels of others, which mod-
estly disclaimed his own honors ? Do not those gen-
erous words yet ring in our ears, in which he put away
from him whatever credit of recent triumphs it was
sought to give him, saying that he had only been a
spectator; that all the praise was due to the generals
and the army ? Or shall I say how his conviction of
the right of our cause sustained him in our darkest
hours, so that that was true of him which John Maid-
stone said of Cromwell, " He was a strong man in the
dark perils of war ; in the high places of the field, hope
shone in him like a pillar of fire when it had gone out
in the others" ? Shall I speak of that simple religious
conviction which has manifestly been deepening in his
heart, till it uttered itself in that Inaugural where even
English eyes have read a sincere humility, and a true
religious spirit ? No ! these things are too sacred to be
touched with careless hand. In the silence of the heart
let us meditate on them ; and pardon me that I have
even put into words the thoughts which o re the reason
of our deepest grief to-day.

I do not attempt to draw the portraiture of this great
ruler whom we have lost. My heart wouLl not let me
do it. You do not need to hear it. He stands before
us all, as he has stamped himself ineffac"ably on the
pure silver of the national heart, all fluent and melted

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 187

in the fervid heats of this time of fiery war. Six days
ago I listened to an earnest voice which claimed for him,
that his name stood side hy side with the highest on
our history ; that, as one is called the Father of his
Country, so his successor should be known hereafter as
the Saviour of his Country. To-day the sorrow of a
whole people gives him the name, and the mysterious
consecration of death sets him apart forever from all
carping tongues or differing thoughts. He belongs to
us all, — a part of our glory ; and even in our grief we
lift our hearts in thanksgiving that he has been ours so
long. Nor should we let the deed of violence which
took him from us cause us to forget still to be grateful
that he lived long enough to see the dawn breaking into
glorious day ; to know that his fidelity, his patience, his
bearing of weary burdens for us all, was to reap its great
reward ; that though, like the great leader of the chosen
people, he has died on the very verge of the promised
land, to his eyes, like those of Moses, it was permitted
to see the future which the Lord would give to a
nation chastened by suffering, and endeared to Him
by adversity.

Nor let us fail to join in our thought of him, as he
would have us, all that innumerable company of wit-
nesses, whose blood has been given for our national life.
Our heroic dead ! from the general to the private, this
day we remember them all in our solemn commemora-
tion. In our warmest love, in our deepest prayers, they
hold a place sacred and imperishable. That holy seal
of martyrdom is now set on them, and on him whose
word they obeyed. "We bring hither our proud sorrow,

188 SERMONS ON THE

our reverent affection, that it may be consecrated by the
Spirit of God ; and we do but repeat the voice of all
the future when we say, " Honor, honor, honor, eternal
honor to their names."

But in this hour, we turn, even from the purest
earthly fame, to the consolations which we need. For
the greatness of the honor tells us of the greatness of
the loss ; and we must have the faith that it is yet God's
will. Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that we do know, under mystery and terror, that still we
can recognize in him a God of infinite wisdom and
perfect love. The body may perish, but the soul lives
forever and forever ; and He has higher ways of service
for his faithful servant, than any ways of earth. Nor
will He, who suffers not " one of his little ones to
perish," let the long agony of this nation be in vain.
He may call his workman hence ; but the work of God
goes on, and is sure.

The long procession of a nation in sorrow bears him
with reverent hands to his grave and our hearts yearn
to bring him the offerings of our love and rever-
ence.

That we may best remember him, we should carry a
deeper purpose into our own lives. I hear that voice
which spoke at Gettysburg, and the words seem
addressed to our own hearts this horn-. " The world,"
said he, " will very little note, nor long remember, what
we say here ; but it can never forget what they did
here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated
here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 189

nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here
dedicated to the great task remaining before us ; that
from these honored dead Ave take increased devotion to
that cause for which they here gave the last full measure
of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these
dead shall not have died in vain ; that the nation shall,
under God, have a new birth of freedom ; and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth."

In a true devotion to our dear country, — the mother
of us all, — let us, standing here, as it were, by the bier
of our chief magistrate, consecrate ourselves anew to her
love and service. Let us resolve to give a true support
to him who is called to that lofty place by such an awful
messenger. Let not the shock of our bereavement cause
us to forget the Christian spirit which breathed six
weeks ago in that Inaugural.

"With malice towards none, with charity for all, with
firmness in the right, — as God gives us to see the right,
— let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind
up the nation's wounds ; to care for those who shall
have borne the battle, and for their widows and orphans.
And with all this, let us strive after a just and lasting
peace among ourselves, and with all nations."

With these words of peace yet, as it were, on his lips,
he has gone into the higher kingdom of perfect peace,
where the weary weight of cares, borne for our sakes, is
laid aside forever. We would not sit by his grave
desolate in our tears ; we would be grateful that He
whose cross is to us the sign of hope, has assured to us

190 SERMONS.

the promise of eternal life. And, as we look up after
that departing presence, with the cry, " My father, my
father ! the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof,"
it shall not be in despair, but in the spirit of perfect
trust.

REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON.

EMMANUEL CHURCH.

It being the Easter Communion, after an extended
service, in which the liturgical and musical portions
were very rich and solemn, the rector, Dr. Huntington,
addressed the congregation from the chancel, substantially
as follows :

We have finished a week of which it seems not too
much to say, that, in the concurrence of public glory and
public crimes, it is without precedent or parallel in the
human history of the world. No doubt, as these strangely
contrasted events have been announced to us, first filling
the land with a joy that could scarcely find moderate
expressions at the sudden prospect of an early, success-
ful and righteous termination to four years of bitter
alienation and bloody strife, and then overwhelming it
with alarm, affliction, and indignation, equally sudden
and even more unspeakable, at that appalling act of
infamy that has struck the civil head of the nation from
his seat and his life together, — many of us have inquired
within ourselves whether there is any one thought, or
truth, or doctrine, large enough, powerful enough, and

17 (193)

194 SERMONS ON THE

reconciling enough to subdue this awful sense of discord,
and to harmonize the terrible contradictions, under one
benignant law of love. Is there any solid shelter, any
holy pavilion, where we can take refuge, and find these
distracting transactions falling into place as parts of one
perfect plan of God ? And probably many of you have
already found a consoling answer to that question.

The solemn path through which the holy evangelists,
in their narratives of our Saviour's last days, and before
he suffered, have led us, to his sacrifice, to the sealing
of his grave, and to its miraculous opening as on this
morning, has brought us to just that comforting and
immortal truth, — deep enough, high enough, and wide
enough to take in and interpret every one of these
conflicting emotions. For there is no possible joy of
deliverance, or jubilee of victory, where the feeling of
both public and personal sin, and the need of a Redeemer,
does not pursue us. Nor is there any secret heaviness,
nor any national mourning, where the cross of Christ
will not support us, and his resurrection from the dead
re-assure us. Here, then, is the reconciliation. Here
is the complete and sufficient declaration of our peace.
Here is solid rock, be the earth never so unquiet!
There is nothing we have felt, as citizens or as men,
that may not find its needed ministry in the scenes where
we have walked and lingered, — Bethany, the Mount of
Olives, Gethsemane, Calvary, and the broken sepulchre.
In the most exultant emotion of triumph at a re-estab-
lished government we have seen the Prince of Peace
marching, with palms and hosannas, in front of the
great procession of kings and commanders. The in-

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 195

tensest and most loyal patriotism is sanctioned by Jesus
weeping over Jerusalem. Every bereaved household is
solaced by going to Bethany, where Lazarus was raised,
and by hearing the Son of Mary commend his mother
to the beloved St. John, amidst the agonies of the
crucifixion.

When we lift up our hearty praises and thanksgivings,
as we must day by day, that the God of Liberty has
struck off the bonds from four millions of enslaved men,
and set our whole country free from that wretched
wrong, how can we help remembering that it is all the
working out, at last, of his infinite mercy by Whom all
the families of men are made of one blood, Who shed
his own most precious blood in sacrifice for all alike, —
the poorest and weakest and darkest as much as any,
and whose Christian service, as our daily collect says, is
alone " perfect freedom" ? Nay, more, we learn how to
look on this appalling assassination, and every attendant
enormity, — leaving retribution to divine and human
courts, — when we hear the Crucified, who was anointed
to be betrayed, praying for his murderers, "Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do!" When
we turn our eyes forward into the future, with whatever
misgivings or anxieties, who can deny or doubt an
instant that all our best and sure hopes rest on the one
inestimable and transcendent fact, which we are now
commemorating, that the Blessed and Holy and Al-
mighty Lord has so loved us as to give himself for us,
the just for the unjust, bringing life and immortality to
light ? Our only safety from coming evil, as a people,
is in righteousness ; and that not of our own obtaining,

196 SERMONS ON THE

but obtained for us by the wonderful grace of an infinite
and everlasting Mediator. Therefore, dear friends, we
do and we will, to-day, joy and rejoice in Christ Jesus,
the resurrection and the life, by whom we have received
the atonement ; who hath broken down the middle wall
of partition, reconciling man with his brother man, and
with his Father, God. For God commendeth his love
to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us. And if we are reconciled by his death, much more,
being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

REV. WARREN II. CUD WORTH.

DANIEL 7P.-35

All the Inhabitants of the Earth are reputed as Noth-
ing : and He doeth according to His Will in the Armies of
Heaven and among the Inhabitants of the Earth ; and none
can stay His Hand or sat unto Him, •« What doest Thou i"

We would have celebrated the joyous festival of
Easter to-day. Generous hands had provided the flow-
ers that were to adorn our altar, and tuneful voices had
made ready the anthem that was to hail the resurrection
of our Lord from the dead. Next to Christmas, this is
the great feast-day of the Church ; and believers of all
denominations are uniting to appreciate and observe it
in a proper manner.

But, yesterday morning, like a clap of thunder from
clear skies, came the appalling announcement, " The
President has been assassinated." " Impossible; it can-
not be ! " we all exclaimed, because we felt it should not
be, it must not be. But when it was re-affirmed, and
the official statement, spread before our strained and
eager eyes, forced the unwilling conviction upon us that
it was, alas ! too true, how startling and dreadful the
blow ! We all felt personally bereaved. About our

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200 SERMONS ON THE

streets the people walked with mournful faces., as though
each one was bowed down by a personal sorrow. We
all seemed to have lost a father, a brother, a dear bosom-
friend. How much we loved, how much we trusted,
how much we leaned upon him, we never knew before.
How can we bear it ? what shall we do without him ? what
could have provoked such an atrocious crime? what does
it all mean ? Such were some of the questionings which
darted through all minds, and formed the burden of
conversation passing from lip to lip.

We can now understand, somewhat, how the apostles
felt when our Lord was arrested, and cruelly put to
death. They had leaned wholly upon Him, supposing
that it was He who should have redeemed Israel ; and
when He was taken from them, and ignominiously
crucified as a common malefactor, no wonder they were
scattered, each one to his own place, leaving Him
alone.

The week through which we have just passed has
not been unlike that Holy or Passion Week, which, in
Judsea of old, was so eventful to the Saviour and his
disciples.

It began in triumph and rejoicing, not only because
Richmond had fallen, but because Lee and his army
had been compelled to surrender, prisoners of war, and
our country was saved at last. It seemed impossible
to express the universal exultation. Churches were
thronged ; cannon boomed from the forts ; assemblies,
gathered from all classes of society, were extemporized
in hall and mart ; flags fluttered on every breeze ;
buildings were gayly decorated with the emblems of

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 201

rejoicing ; schools -were dismissed ; stores and work-
shops closed ; bonfires, illuminations, and fireworks
brightened the night, and every loyal heart was full of
happiness. But, alas ! it ended like the week of sor-
rows, in gloom and blood. And is it not strange that
Good Friday was the day, of all days in the year,
chosen by the murderer for his infamous deed ? It is
one of those remarkable historical coincidences, which,
whether we will or not, challenge observation and cause
remark ; and, no doubt, could our President have spoken
after he was shot, he would have forgiven the cowardly
perpetrator of this inhuman act, and rounded the par-
allel with a final and complete imitation of our Lord's
example.

Let us not imagine that the evil of this deplorable
event is unmitigated and unrelieved; for, in the worst
condition of human society, and amid the most disastrous
circumstances connected with human affairs, " God is
our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed,
and though the mountains be carried into the midst of
the sea." God maketh even the wrath of man to praise
Him, and the remainder He restraineth.

" All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as
nothing ; and He doeth according to his will in the
armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto Him,
4 What doest Thou r' "

This awful occurrence has not taken God by surprise,
for known unto Him are all his works from the begin-
ning of the world.

202 SERMONS ON THE

Death is an experience of such magnitude, that, as we
are assured, not even a sparrow falleth to the ground
without God's notice ; and surely an event of such tran-
scendent moment as the brutal murder of the ruler of a
great and free nation, in the zenith of his popularity and
usefulness, cannot occur without the oversight of an all-
controlling Providence.

" The very hairs of our heads are all numbered."
" The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord,
and He delighteth in his way."

Let us never forget that God gave us President
Lincoln in the first place. That He led his father to
move across the Ohio River when he was as yet but a
child, leaving that condition of semi-bondage in which
all poor whites were then compelled to live in the slave
States, and settling down where he could breathe the
air of freedom. Let us remember the struggles, labors,
and aspirations of his boyhood, youth, and early man-
hood ; how he toiled, as a boatman, up and down the
great rivers of that region ; how, axe in hand, he hewed
his own way through the world ; how he studied,
thought, observed, prepared himself for the bar, and
finally entered upon his political career; how he dis-
tanced all competitors in the nomination for the
presidency ; how he was elected, after the most exciting
canvass ever known in this country ; how his life was
preserved during the passage through Baltimore to his
first inauguration; how signally he has been directed
and sustained throughout his official career thus far, and
how really he has not been taken from us until his work
was done ; his enemies scattered, the rebellion put
down, the Union restored, and the country saved.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 203

Though dead, he yet speaketh to us, in that earnest
request of his, for the prayers of all Christians through-
out the land, that he might be guided and controlled of
God. And who knows, but the Most High, how much
he owes to the prayers of righteous men and women,
which have been going up day and night for him,
accordingly, ever since he entered upon the discharge
of his duties. As a nation, we have relied too little
upon God. Ever since the war broke out, we have
been seeking and trying General this and General that,
— feeling sure, at each fresh selection, that at last we
had hit upon the right man, and he would prove our
national deliverer. But as one after another our
Generals have been tried and found wanting, how
plainly has God revealed to us, that " all the inhabitants
of the earth are reputed as nothing ; and He doeth
according to his will in the armies of heaven, and
among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
his hand, or say unto him, ' What doest thou ? ' " How
clearly and irresistibly, after every fresh disaster, has
He led us back to himself, and taught us that vain was
the help of man ; that " the race was not to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong," and that we were to
prevail over our enemies, not by might, nor by power,
but by his blessing and favor.

Never had nation stronger reason for reliance upon
God than has ours. The location of our Puritan ances-
tors here, after a vain endeavor to settle in Holland ; the
Declaration of Independence leading to the Revolution-
ary war, during the first years of which hardly glim-
mered the hope of our success ; the final achievement of

204 SERMONS ON THE

national existence ; the adoption of the Constitution ; the
federal Union of States, growing stronger and more
numerous every generation, and the survival of political
convulsions caused by the overthrow and destruction of
powerful parties, — these prove that God had a purpose
to accomplish in the preservation of the country, which
not all the malice of its foes nor the folly of its mistaken
friends could thwart.

Who may say that that purpose is yet attained ? And
if not, who can deny that God is ordering the course of
events so as to secure its attainment ? Let us rely upon
Him, therefore ; assured, that, having begun a good work
among us, he will carry it on to a successful termination.

Was it not a signal manifestation of Divine favor, that
the assassin was not allowed to triumph until the very
work he would interrupt had been completed ? No
doubt this deed had been long premeditated by more
than one of those domestic traitors who have been toler-
ated in our midst, and opportunities may have been sought,
again and again, to take the lives of our honored Chief
Magistrate, and all associated with him at the head of
affairs. No doubt it was the hope of the miscreants,
directly and indirectly engaged, had their nefarious
schemes succeeded, to have thrown the administration
into embarrassment and confusion : profiting by which
they hoped to seize the reins of government, and have
everything their own way. Man may propose, but God
disposes. It was not to be. The cowardly assailant of
the President could not even pretend to any such motive.
He exclaims, "J am revenged!" His feelings were
wholly personal. His act was the wilful, deliberate,

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 205

execrable crime of a hireling cutthroat and ruffian,
unattended by a single palliating circumstance.

He was too late to arrest the mighty current which
this war has started in favor of universal liberty, and
his act must tend to make that current wider, deeper
and stronger than ever.

Thus will God overrule what was intended to be a
fatal blow to all our hopes and prospects, for their
speedier fulfilment and their brighter realization.

President Lincoln was the most prominent representa-
tive and illustration of the great national idea upon
which all our free institutions are founded. He was
emphatically a man of the people. He spoke the lan-
guage of the people. He thought and acted after the
manner of the people ; and his assassination, at such a
time, will lay broader and firmer the foundations of
popular liberty in the heart of mankind, than could
years of common life and labor.

God may have seen that a sterner hand than his was
needed to hold the helm of state during the next four
years of reckoning and reconstruction. We all have
marked how gentle and kindly he has been ; with what
forbearance he has treated enemies ; how he has warned,
expostulated, and entreated rebels to return to their
allegiance ; how he has given them time for repentance,
and foretold plainly the doom which sooner or later must
overtake their cause. Hundreds of men whose lives
were forfeit by the law, he has pardoned and released.
Of all papers, the hardest for him to sign was a death-
warrant : and, whenever he could, consistently with his
duty as Chief Magistrate of a great nation, he has com-
18

206 SERMONS ON THE

muted the death-penalty to labor or imprisonment. I
have seen him at many reviews of the national troops,
and his face always wore a genial and friendly expres-
sion. He was approachable to all, and as courteous in
his manner towards the private in the ranks as the
officer on the line. The soldiers loved him. Thousands
who voted against him at his first election voted for him
at the second, not because their political preferences had
changed, but because they had come to believe in the
man ; and upon no hearts has fallen the burden of a
heavier grief than rests upon those who have fought for
the country he has served so well.

His death, under God, will do as much for the cause
he had at heart, as did his life : for all great causes need
martyrs quite as much as they do men. If the blood of
martyr believers is the seed of the Church, surely the
blood of martyred patriots is the seed of the country.
Not a few the noble souls who have risked and lost
all during the fearful conflicts of the last four years.
And now, as he led them in life, he leads them in death.
They were allowed the privilege of meeting their foes in
fair fight. He fell, the victim of unexpected butchery ;
and, as men can never get out of their hearts and souls
the honest indignation such a deed excites, so they will
never dismiss from their minds the noble principles for
whose dissemination he labored, and in defence of which
he died.

President Lincoln, as the victim of an assassin, will
have vastly more influence in the future than would
President Lincoln the successful ruler of a great people.
His very wound will cry out against the spirit and belief

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 207

of those who have connived at his destruction. The
man might provoke animosity ; the martyr will com-
mand respect. We know that, already, several of the
leading supporters of his administration, hitherto, had
taken issue with him on important points connected with
reconstruction in the rehel States, the confiscation of
property, the unconditional abolition of slavery, the ex-
tension of the right of suffrage, and the publication of
an act of amnesty offering pardon to everybody willing
to renew allegiance. Hundreds of perplexing questions
would no doubt have arisen, splitting up his former sym-
pathisers into conflicting parties intent on compassing
their ends, and willing, for this purpose, to separate from
him. This was evil to come. He has been removed
from it ; and, high above the storms it may cause to
gather and break, his image will be treasured in every
heart, his example be an inspiration to every life.

He has left, in sacred trust to every person in this
country, a legacy of invaluable principles, far more likely
to be carried out because adherence to them has cost
him his life.

There is an element of reverence for the heroic dead
in human nature, which wields constantly-increasing
sway over human faith and action. We never know
how great or good are the prominent men among whom
we live ; or, if we know, we do not seem to realize it so
keenly while they are moving in our midst, as when they
have left us forever. So we ride past one of the stately
churches which adorn our streets. The symmetry and
grandeur of its proportions do not catch our eye when
near ; but as we are borne farther and farther from it,

208 SEKMONS ON THE

its walls and towers loom up higher and higher, its
harmonious outlines stand out more and more boldly, it
separates itself faster and faster from the ranges of
common buildings around it, and becomes in the distance
the most prominent and commanding feature of the
view.

Had President Lincoln lived on through the entire
term of his office, being in our midst, and not always
the representative of our ideas, no doubt he would often
have failed of appreciation, had he not provoked opposi-
tion, and some of his measures or recommendations
would have been sharply criticised, if not severely
censured.

But now, as it were, he has bequeathed to us the
principles of his administration as an inheritance bought
and sealed with his blood, all the more sacred and bind-
ing upon us because he no longer lives to expound and
enforce them himself. The more they are examined,
applied, and tested, the more they must be valued ; the
more thoroughly and faithfully they are adhered to, the
more highly will they be esteemed.

God would have such principles — though obnoxious
to a large number of the American people — brought
into bold relief before the eyes of men ; and, in spite of
every effort to the contrary, it has been done. Truly,
" All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing :
and He doeth according to his will in the armies of
heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth : and
none can stay His hand, or say unto him, ' What docst
thou?'"

Let me remark, in conclusion, that the assassin's act

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 209

shows the terrible depravity of human nature. There
are many who call him fiend and demon, but to me he
seems to be only a bad man. So low will human nature
sink when left to the unrestrained control of hatred,
selfishness, and passion ; so vile and base and brutal
will a man become, if he is wholly bent on evil. Let us
not deceive ourselves with words. Call the act devilish
and infernal if you will, for it deserves all the epithets
that depravity has forced into our language ; but let us
not forget that once the actor was an innocent, harmless
child, and that he has been sinking to the infamy of his
present condition, step by step. His whole life seems to
have been filled with flagrant violations of the moral law.
A traitor from the beginning, without manliness enough
to induce him to enlist in the rebel army, he has pre-
ferred, like thousands of others, to stay at home, and
meanly appropriate the blessings, comforts, and protec-
tion of a country which all the time he was endeavoring
to destroy.

No wonder the conspirators against the life of our
beloved President found in such a man a willing tool
all ready for their purposes. What he has done is only
a practical re-affirmation of God's holy word, that "The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked," and should convince us that the germs of all
possible iniquity, latent, undeveloped, it may be, are in
all our hearts ; and we need, without exception, the
presence and the grace of God to prevent them from
springing into a vigorous and powerful growth.

Finally, God has again providentially lifted the veil
that apologists for slavery — Northern and Southern —
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210 SERMONS ON THE

have drawn over its hideous features, and shown us just
what spirit it is of. Thank God, the utterances from
this desk, while I have been in it, have been uniform
and incapable of misconstruction upon this point. A
tree is known by its fruits. It was slavery, in the
person of Preston S. Brooks, that made the brutal and
cowardly attack upon Senator Sumner, but a few years
ago, in the Senate chamber of the United States,
supported by armed abettors, approaching him from
behind, and beating him over the head until he fell from
his desk, bleeding and insensible !

It was slavery that induced the mob of Alton, Illinois,
to surround the printing-office of E. P. Lovejoy, on the
7th of November, 1837, destroying not only the press
and building, but the life of their fearless and faithful
defender.

It was slavery that chained the Boston court-house,
some ten years ago, and led off its chattel in triumph
through our streets, escorted by an irresistible military
force. Slavery for years has controlled congressional
action, and forced even Presidents into compliance with
its wishes.

It was slavery that trained and fired the first gun at
Sumter, and, without justifiable cause or provocation,
precipitated upon this great country the horrors of a civil
Avar. And can I trust myself to speak of the starving,
shooting, and torturing of our captured troops in the
prison pens of Andersonville, Salisbury, Dalton, Colum-
bia, Wilmington, and Danville, when, without the least
necessity, without the shadow of an excuse, their infernal
captors slowly and pitilessly forced them into their

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 211

graves by thousands ? No, I cannot ! Thej were all
slaveholders, or the tools of slaveholders, and they but
exhibited the temper slavery has developed and en-
couraged from the beginning of time.

What but the barbarism engendered by this "peculiar
institution " has violated the sanctity of the grave, and,
disinterring the remains of fallen soldiers, made of their
bones trinkets and mementoes to amuse friends at home ?

Shall I remind you of the invariable custom of rebel
artillerists to shell our hospitals upon the field of battle,
and that again and again their troops have bayoneted
the wounded ? Who has forgotten the massacre at Fort
Pillow; the upsetting of a whole train of ambulances
filled with wounded men in Tennessee ; the hanging of
loyal persons, in the presence of their agonized families,
in all the Southern States ; the slaughter at Lawrence,
Kansas, of inoffensive citizens, and the burning of their
habitations and effects by the infamous Quantrell ; the
attempted destruction of all our Northern cities, crowded
with inhabitants, by incendiaries ; and the robbery and
murder at St. Albans ? It would have seemed impossi-
ble to outdo the horror of such atrocities, but even that
has been done. This last act crowns and completes the
whole. Slavery has lost all disguises forever, and must
now stand forth to the end of time in all its natural and
revolting hideousness.

Because I have felt this to be its character for many
years, I have been unable to endure the thought that
members of this society, otherwise lovable and engaging,
should be ranked among its defenders, and so have
spoken strongly and repeatedly, though always in a spirit

212 SERMONS.

of charity and affection to them. Let me entreat of
them again, if any there be here, or ask their friends to
entreat of them if not, to reflect upon the stand they
have taken, to view it in the light of this last deplorable
event which has overwhelmed our whole nation with
sorrow and gloom, and acknowledge that slavery has
indeed proved itself to be the sum of all human villa-
nies, and deserves the abhorrence and execration of man-
kind.

" Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side :
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom

or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever, 'twixt that darkness and that

light."

Whether we will have it so or not, it is very evident
that God has decreed the abolition of American Slavery.
Whatever door He opens, man may not shut ; whatever
door He shuts, man may not open. God is now, and
ever shall be, what He has been from the beginning.
" All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing,
and He doeth according to his will, in the armies of
heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth ; and
none can stay his hand, or say unto Him, ' What doest
Thou ? '" Amen.

REV. CHANDLER ROB BINS.

PSALMS LXXVII: 19

Thy -way is in the Sea, and thy Path in the gbeat
"Waters, and thy Footsteps are not known.

How mysterious are the ways of Providence ! We
have passed through such a week of Avonders and con-
trasts, through such quick alternations of fierce extremes
of emotion, out of long anxiety into sudden hope and
joy, and anon, from highest jubilee to lowest mourning,
that — may God have mercy upon us — we come into
the sanctuary to-day with our minds so agitated, jaded,
amazed, that we are unfit to offer anything except a pro-
found acknowledgment of God's inscrutable designs, and
an humble prayer for his most needed succor.

How mysterious are the ways of Providence ! We
felt this, and we said it here — but under what opposite
conditions ! — only three days ago. We had assembled
then, at the call of a human magistrate, to humiliate
ourselves for our sins ; but He Avho overruleth all had
recently sent us such a joyful surprise as to turn our
Fast into a Thanksgiving. And now, on this blessed
Easter Sunday, which we were expecting to celebrate
with double gladness, through the association of our joy

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216 SERMONS ON THE

for our country's triumph with our rejoicings for our
Redeemer's victory, He has permitted our land to be
shrouded with such a tragic gloom as even the radiance
of the resurrection cannot wholly dispel. Alas! that
the same loving hands which were preparing to grace
this sacred altar with those simple but fragrant tokens
of our Christian gratitude, should have been called, at
the last moment, to entwine around them those drooping
emblems of our patriotic woe.-'4

How mysterious are the ways of Providence ! The
life which He had protected for four eventful years
amidst a thousand dangers ; the life which was dear,
and every day becoming dearer to all who love our coun-
try ; the life which, in human view, was most important
to the nation's welfare ; the life upon whose continu-
ance, more than upon any other mortal pillar, we hung
our hopes of a brighter era of justice and of peace ; the
life which the myriads who are coming out of bondage
have daily commended with prayers and thanksgivings
to God ; the life which foreign nations, both friendly and
jealous, were beginning to respect and honor ; the life
which, in its peculiar way, was exerting an influence
more powerful and extensive than that of any potentate
of the old world ; the life which legions of armed men
stood ready to protect with their own, He has permitted
a vile assassin's hand to destroy at one fell blow.

* Several ladies of the church had prepared a cross of " May-
flowers" for the front of the pulpit, and a large basket of rich flow-
ers for the communion-table, in honor of Easter Sunday. On
hearing of the President's death they draped the pulpit with flags
of the United States, dressed with mourning.

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 217

We are told in his holy oracles, that, without Him, not
a sparrow falleth to the ground, nor a hair of His ser-
vants' heads can be harmed. But He has not interposed
secret hand to shield that honored head from such an
ignoble fate. We are tuld that He counts the tears of
His children, and hears every sigh of the solitary suf-
ferer. But He has not thwarted that murderous purpose
which has flooded a nation with grief, and extorted a
simultaneous wail of anguish from millions of wounded
hearts.

Yes, His ways are indeed mysterious ! But who of us
would question His wisdom or His mercy? "As high
as the heavens are above the earth, so are His thoughts
higher than our thoughts." Only because they are so
exalted are they incomprehensible to us. The darkness
which shrouds His plans is caused by their unfathomable
depth. We fail to see His goodness, because His love
is infinite.

What know we yet of the purposes of His providence
in permitting this horrid crime ? Who can tell us what
consequences God may have foreseen would have resulted
from the disappointment of that infernal design ? What
consequences to the distinguished victim himself, and
what to the nation and to humanity ? You must dis-
cover that secret before you begin to question His wis-
dom. Who can tell us that greater evil would not have
accrued from the arrest, than from the execution of that
satanic deed ? — greater evil to him whom we lament, to
the people to whom he was so unselfishly devoted, and
to the cause of those principles which, as he himself
once said, were dearer to him than life, — and which
19

218 SERMONS ON THE

ought to be dearer to us also than the life of any mor-
tal, however honored and beloved. Yon must solve that
problem, before you can begin to arraign His goodness.
You must pry into the future, aud foresee the results
which will actually follow from this tragedy, the influ-
ence it is to have upon the course and welfare of the
country, upon the settlement of the momentous questions
that are opening before us, upon the feeling and action
of the North and of the South, upon our domestic and
foreign relations and policy, upon the great interests of
justice, freedom, and Christian civilization, — you must
look forward and acquaint yourself with these things
before you begin to murmur at what He has done, " who
seeth the end from the beginning."

Yes, His ways are mysterious, — dark, very dark, and
awful, as we contemplate them amid these first pangs of
bereavement. But not wholly dark even now. Already
gleams of light flash upon us through the gloom. Already
some tokens of loving kindness find their way to our
hearts.

He who so reluctantly inaugurated the war of defence
and retribution which treason had forced upon us ; he
who till the last moment cherished the delusive hope,
offspring of his own generous nature, that his rebellious
countrymen would relent ; he who, through all the stages
of the fierce conflict, in spite of the bitterness which it
has engendered and the spirit of retaliation it has pro-
voked, has invariably leaned to the side of forgiveness
and mercy ; he who, whatever errors he may be judged
by any to have committed, has under God conducted the
nation safely and honorably through its long path of

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 219

peril ; lie who, as the event has proved, was the provi-
dential man for the last four years, and whom we could
not have spared during their progress without far worse
disasters than any which have befallen us, — he has
been graciously preserved to rejoice with us all over those
last victories which have vindicated the violated authori-
ty of the nation; he has been spared to hear the shouts
of our armies hailing the glorious issue which has crowned
their valor, and repaid them for all their toils ; he has
been spared to see the flag of the Union floating over the
strongholds of rebellion ; to contemplate near at hand the
Messed prospect of peace ; to meditate a proclamation of
amnesty ; to consider with his Cabinet the terms of rec-
onciliation, and to send abroad to foreign nations those
significant messages which re-assert the suspended rights
of the nation, and demand the unqualified recognition of
its re-established dignity and power. In these provi-
dential favors, which come at once to remembrance, we
should be ungrateful not to recognize the divine benig-
nity, both to him and to us.

Moreover, we cannot but feel that he has died in a
good time for himself; in a moment of joy, in an hour
of hope and triumph, in the midst of peaceful and gen-
erous thoughts, while offering grateful aspirations to
God, and devising acts of forgiveness and magnanimity
towards man. Though the manner of his death is
shocking to us, yet we should not forget that to him it
was without a pang. Though toe contemplate the vile-
ivss of the instrument with indignation and abhorrence,
yet he himself had no suspicion of the malignity of

220 SEEMOXS ON THE

which he was the victim, and no feeling of revenge
towards the murderer who hurried him to his rest.

Whether he has died also in a good time for his
country and for us, remains yet to be revealed. That
Providence designs this event for tho ultimate good of
the nation we will not, we cannot doubt. But of what
nature that good may be, and in what ways it may be
accomplished, only the future will disclose.

Perhaps it may be His holy purpose to subject us to
yet new tribulations. Peihaps He sees that we have not
improved as we ought the discipline which has been
hitherto laid upon us. Perhaps He perceives that it is
necessary that we should pass through yet another fur-
nace of afHiction before we shall have become purified
like gold tried in the fire. Perhaps He has seen that
we have trusted too much to an arm of flesh. Perhaps
He knows that the awful lessons of the war have not
sunk deep enough into our hearts ; that '-anity and
pride, frivolity and luxury, intemperance and dishonesty,
reckless speculation and greed of gain, immorality and
ungodliness, have not been rebuhed and abashed and
awed as they ought to have been by His judgments, by
the vast bereavements and calamities which have been
visited upon us for our public and private sins.

If such as these are among His purposes, — and that
they may be, the consciences of many must bear witness
that there is too much cause for believing, — then it rests
in no small measure with ourselves whether this sudden
chastisement shall eventuate in our good. O my country-
men, my countrymen ! let us suffer ourselves to be
implored and admonished, by all that is solemn and

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 221

shocking in this bereavement ; by this startling evidence
of the brittleness of human life and the vanity of human
hopes ; by this awful warning of the fearful crimes to
which wicked passions lead ; by all that is instructive
and exemplary in the life, and all that is impressive
and touching in the death, of the honored head of our
nation; by all that our country has suffered and is suf-
fering ; by all the precious blood which has been shed
in its behalf; by all the claims it has upon its children ;
by all we owe to God, to our families, to our fellow-men,
and to our own souls, — let us be admonished and im-
plored to put away the evil of our doings ; to cast out
all low and selfish passions from our hearts ; to watch
and pray that we ourselves may not fall into temptation :
to watch and pray and work, each one of us in his place,
for the promotion of public virtue and the correction of
the national sins ; to dedicate the remainder of our lives
to wisdom and righteousness. It is upon the moral
results of these times of trial that the salvation both of
our country and ourselves depends ; and for these, let
us remember, God will hold our citizens individually
responsible.

But the oppressive sense of our great bereavement
must not be permitted to draw our thoughts away from
that sublime and joyous event which the whole Christian
world commemorates to-day. Indeed, it is all the more
salutary and needful, amidst this national distress and
perplexity, while the winds and waves are roaring,
while the earthly foundations of our confidence are
shaking beneath us, and the pillars of human pride and
hope are falling around us, that we should turn anew to
19*

222 SERMONS ON THE

the bright revelation of immortal life, and contemplate
afresh the radiant pledge of the incorruptible and un-
fading inheritance.

Christ is risen ! Thanks be to God, who has set this
transcendent fact over against all the gloom and misery
and mystery of man's earthly lot ; thanks, that the
interposing love of our Maker has inwrought it as a
vital reality into human experience and history ; thanks,
that the heel of the woman's seed is actually planted on
the serpent's head ; that redeeming energy has mani-
fested itself in human flesh ; that the Eternal Word has
spoken its life-giving truths through human lips ; that
that " Eternal Life which was with the Father " has
been upon the earth, seen by mortal eyes and handled
by mortal hands ; that power and love divine have come
down from heaven and dwelt among us, healing our
diseases, comforting our sorrows, forgiving and taking
away our sins ; that the Son of God, the " Wonderful,"
the " Conqueror," the " Prince of Peace," of whose
" kingdom there shall be no end," has taken upon him-
self our own nature, — dignifying it by his perfect life,
redeeming it by his obedient death, renovating it by his
quickening spirit, raising and glorifying it by his own
glorious rising, — that he is bound to us and identified
with us by the ties and sympathies of a common human-
ity, and has promised to love and guide and save and
sanctify, and bring home, at length, spotless and joyous,
to his Father's presence, every one who believes in him.

To-day, in the midst of our gloom, Ave will fix our
thoughts and our hearts upon this " mystery of godli-
ness," this miracle of the divine mercy, wrought in with

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 223

the course of human events as palpably as the saddest
reality of our experience, — more vivid and more im-
pressive than the most tragic scene of history, — till all
that is dark, disheartening and appalling fades into
comparative obscurity, and the whole soul is irradiated
with the glory of that majestic vision.

Come, then, all ye who believe that " Christ died for
our sins, and rose again for our justification " ; in this
hour of general Christian jubilee, lift up your eyes,
swollen with weeping, lift up your hearts, burdened
with grief, and bear your part with the vast chorus of
believers, who are raising, in ten thousand temples, their
song of Christian triumph., — " Thanks be to God, who
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ ! "

REV. W. S. STUDLEY.

LAMENTATIONS V: 15, 16, 17, 19.

The Joy of our Heart is ceased ; our Dance is turned
into Mourning. The Crown is fallen from our Head.
"Woe unto us, that we have sinned. For this our Heart
is faint. For these Things our Eyes are dim. * * *
THOU, O Lord ! remainest forever ! Thy Throne from
Generation to Generation.

This bright Easter morning is one of the saddest, and,
at the same time, one of the most hopeful mornings that
ever dawned upon the American people.

In the vigor of his days, in the ripeness of his expe-
rience as a ruler, in the midst of duties which no man
knew or was better qualified to discharge than he, the
foremost man of this nation has been struck down by
the hand of an assassin.

Abraham Lincoln, our President, whose mental and
moral vision was as clear and true as a sunbeam, and
whose great heart was as tender and loving as a wom-
an's, a man who possessed such a genial and generous
nature that he had scarcely a personal enemy in the
world, — having guided the republic safely through the
darkest night of trial that ever gathered about any

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228 SERMONS ON THE

people since the foundation of the world, — just when
the morning light begins to dawn upon us, giving prom-
ise of a long and glorious day, — this wise and just and
merciful ruler lies murdered in the capital !

What language can express our horror of the blow
which struck him down ? And what shall we say of the
hellish power which prompted and aimed the blow ?

We thought we had already seen the utmost reach
of barbarism and savagery of which the slave-power is
capable. We had seen it trample on the rights of four
millions of people, using them solely for its own infernal
lusts. We had seen it make war on the most beneficent
and kindly government that was ever devised among
men. We had seen it take the slain victims of that
war, and of their bones make toys and playthings and
personal adornments for its wives and children. We
had seen it take the living victims of that war, and
transform sixty thousand of them into idiotic skeletons
or ghastly corpses by the torturing process of starvation.
Ay, in a land teeming with abundance, in the very heart
of Georgia, tens of thousands of Federal soldiers, —
under the direction of Jefferson Davis, and with the
consent of Robert E. Lee, — were literally and delib-
erately and vindictively starved to death, or into hope-
less idiocy ; and the last breath of many a brave man
was spent in offering a pitiful but unanswered cry for
bread !

And now, to fill the measure of its wickedness,
slavery has clone — what ? How shall we characterize
its latest deed ? What lexicon contains the word by
which to fitly call it ? What shall we name the act

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 229

of one who comes behind an unarmed, unsuspecting
man, — surrounded by his family, enjoying an hour's
respite from the weightiest ^burden of responsibility and
care that ever rested upon a single mind, — and delib-
erately shoots him down ? What shall we call the act
of one who goes to the darkened chamber of an almost
dying man, — a man whose bones have just been
so shattered by accident as to make it doubtful if he
ever moves again, — and, leaping upon the bed, with
the fury of a fiend, plunges a dagger, again and again,
into his helpless and almost lifeless form ? And these
nameless deeds slavery has just done to increase and
perpetuate its previous record of infamy !

Marc Antony, standing above the body of the mur-
dered Csesar, is represented by the great dramatist
as saying what we might say to-day above the scarred
remains of the late wise and generous President of this
republic :

" Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times !
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood ! "

Ay, woe to Slavery! — woe to its perjured, bloody-
handed champion, Jefferson Davis ! — woe to its adher-
ents and defenders, its advocates and apologists, whether
in Carolina or Massachusetts ! Behold, the hour of its
destruction is at hand ! Nay, this very Easter Sunday
is the day of its resurrection ! — its resurrection to ever-
lasting shame and contempt! — its resurrection to com-
plete and eternal damnation ! Its doom is sealed !

To-day, for one, I would rather be the murdered
20

230 SERMONS ON THE

President, or the wounded Secretary, than to be the man,
who, in this hour of the nation's sorrow, has no prayer
to offer for the final and utter extermination of that
system which has lifted itself so long against our peace.

When Slavery did this last and most brutal of all its
deeds, it doubtless thought to intimidate the future rulers
of this land from meting out to traitors the punishment
which their crimes deserve. But it made a fearful
mistake. In dealing with traitors, Andrew Johnson's
little finger will be thicker than Abraham Lincoln's
loins. If the old president chastised them with whips,
the new president will chastise them with scorpions.
Here is what he said only last week in a public address
on the occasion of the fall of Richmond :

" Treason is the highest crime known in the catalogue
of crimes ; and for him that is guilty of it, — for him
that is willing to lilt his impious hand against the
authority of the nation, — I would say death is too easy
a punishment. My notion is that treason must be made
odious ; that traitors must be punished and impoverished:
their social power broken.

" You, my friends, have traitors in your very midst, and
treason needs rebuke and punishment here as well as
elsewhere. It is not the men in the field who are the
greatest traitors. It is the men who have encouraged
them to imperil their lives, while they themselves have
remained at home, expending their means, and exerting
all their power, to overthrow the government. Hence I
say this : ' the halter to intelligent, influential traitors.'
But to the honest boy, to the deluded man, who have
been deceived into the rebel ranks, I would extend

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 231

leniency. I would say return to your allegiance, renew
your support to the government, and become good
citizens ; but the leaders I would hang."

Nor is this a new-born sentiment in the heart of
Andrew Johnson ; for as long ago as the second of
March, 1861, in a thrilling speech, which created an
unparalleled outbreak of enthusiasm in the galleries of
the Senate Chamber, he said :

" Show me the man who makes war on the govern-
ment, and fires on its vessels, and I will show you a
traitor. And, if 1 were President of the United States, I
would have all such arrested, and when tried and con-
victed, by the eternal God, I would have them hung /"

There is hope, therefore, in the bright beams of this
Easter sun ! Our new ruler knows how to deal with
traitors !

Abraham Lincoln is dead : slain by the hand of
slavery ! He lived long enough, however, to see the
promised land from Pisgah ; long enough to witness
the triumph of that army and navy of which he was the
commander-in-chief; long enough to walk through the
streets of Richmond, clad in magisterial authority; long
enough to insure for the American people " liberty and
union, now and forever, one and inseparable " ; long
enough to insure for himself a spotless record — a death-
less name. That which the poet sung of the Greek hero
is peculiarly applicable to our departed leader :

" Thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's ! "
There is hope, I say, as well as sadness, in this hour ;

232 SERMONS.

the joy of our heart may have ceased ; our dance may
have been turned into mourning ; the crown may have
fallen from our head, but " Thou, O Lord, remainest
forever; Thy throne from: generation to gen-
eration. And, while God remains, truth cannot be
shorn of its beauty or strength by any of the machina-
tions of error.

On that dreadful Friday, when the enemies of Jesus
nailed Him to the cross, they thought that they had
silenced Him for ever ; but there was never a greater
mistake. They had only placed Him where His divine
beauty could be more clearly seen, and where His divine
power could be more widely exerted.

And so it will be always. Every purpose of evil is
certain to be overruled for good. No outrage upon relig-
ion, or humanity, is permitted to go unavenged forever.

Four years ago the arch leader of the rebellion declared
that the war should be waged on northern soil ; that,
within their own State lines, the people of the North
should smell southern powder and feel southern steel.
But God ordained it otherwise. His decree went forth
that the power of injustice should be destroyed on the
very spot where it had been exerted. And this latest
crime of treachery and oppression, which has filled every
loyal heart so suddenly with mourning, by God's over-
riding grace shall work out more perfectly the redemp-
tion of our land. Amen.

REV. RUFUS ELLIS.

LUKE XXIV: 5, 6.

And as they -were afraid, and bowed down their Faces
to the Earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the

LIVING AMONG THE DEAD ? He IS NOT HERE, BUT IS RISEN.

The voices still sound for the ear of faith ; and he
who hath that ear, let him hear what the spirit saith
unto the churches to-day. It is our resurrection-morn-
ing, a time consecrated to gladness ; and yet it finds a
nation in tears. Our tower of strength is fallen. Bloody
violence has invaded the high places of the land ; and
he who was in deed as well as in name the head of the
people, more and more trusted, more and more loved,
as he was better and better known, lies dead, — our
country's martyr. Only on the last Thursday I tried
to acknowledge, in a few earnest words, the eminent
worth and high services of our noble President, and now
he is no more with us on earth ; and, saddest thought
of all, the wrath of man hath wrought for us this woe.
Let every believing soul exercise a high and serene and
Christian trust, according to the great necessities of an
hour which hath no precedent in our history, and be
wise and calm and faithful in the persuasion, that, in

(2:$5)

236 SERMONS ON THE

the providence of God, the wrath of man shall accom-
plish all the more completely that divine purpose which
nothing can defeat or so much as delay. Our Easter *
flowers shall remain in the house of prayer, not because
we are glad, — we cannot be glad to-day, — but because
we are full of the great hope which is the Christian's
anchor, and which holds in the stormiest sea. They
are providentially here to grace the burial of our Chief
Magistrate, honored and well beloved, the best defence
of the nation, under God, only yesterday : they shall be
eloquent symbols of immortality, shining witnesses of
the light that burns behind the darkest clouds, and
of the love which is unchanging ; of the earth, earthy,
and yet fragrant as with the airs of heaven, and telling
us of things heavenly, that —

" Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green."

I am not sorry that it is Easter-morning ; that the sad
message has found us at the open tomb of Jesus, thank-
ful, with a Christian thankfulness, that death is for
ever abolished, and taught, by that look of triumph in
the eyes of our risen Lord, how surely and how swiftly
sometimes God brings the best things out of the worst,
and clothes the heaviest spirits in the most radiant gar-
ments of praise. Let us confess his hand; and that
known unto him are all the works of man from the
foundation of the world ; and that this blow also was
needed, else it had not been given in the providence of
One who never willingly afflicts.

* Easter Sunday, April 16.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 237

" Why seek ye the living among the dead ? He is
not here, but is risen." It is a pious, faithful, and most
tender office to go to the graves of our loved ones ; and
not to weep there were to be less than human. Know
ye not, said the apostle, that ye are the temples of God ;
and that your very bodies are consecrated, fashioned into
majesty and beauty by the life within ? And we have
all seen how the departing spirit sets upon the lifeless
form its own lovely image ; and, m proportion as we
honor the soul, we deal very tenderly with the soul's
wonderful tabernacle. Nevertheless there is need of the
question, "Why seek ye the living among the dead ? "
— need that, even here in Christendom, we should again
and again be told, " He is not here, but is risen."
They are not the words which man's wisdom teacheth.
Science does not announce them amongst her discoveries,
old or new. The heart of nature hath no such burden
as that to roll forth from its burning core, persistent as
is its hope, deep as is its desire of immortality. The
voices are the voices of angels ; they come to us from
that tomb in which Christ and his gospel seemed to be
for ever buried ; they are the echoes of those early testi-
monies which declared to all the world, beginning at
Jerusalem, that he who " suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried," rose from the dead on
the third day, to be called, ever after, the Lord's Day,
to be the Easter of each week, —

" Till week-days, folloAving in their train,
The fulness of the blessing gain ;
Till all, both resting and employ,
Be one Lord's Day of holy joy."

238 SERMONS ON THE

It is an unspeakable privilege to live in days when
the angjlic voices are to be heard ; and we never hear
them more distinctly, and are never more sure that they
are from heaven, than when, in our human weakness, we
are afraid, and our faces are bowed down to the earth.
It would be agony sometimes to look upon the poor
stricken body, over which the change may have passed
almost in the twinkling of an eye, if the spirit which
leads us into all blessed and consoling truths were not
waiting for the opportunity to say, " He is not here, but
is risen;" for that is what the spirit whispers in the
heart of every true believer since the Lord abolished
death. The bridegroom has been taken from them, and
the children of the bridechamber may well mourn ; but
it is a holy and hopeful sorrow which moves their hearts,
and they are lifted at once into heavenly places with the
departed, and he is transfigured before them ; and the
eyes which were holden before that they could not see
are anointed ; and, because he lives, we live. Listen
now, as you never yet have listened, for the angelic
voices. It is a nation's opportunity to grow into a
deeper faith in the everlasting life, — a faith that death
only sets free, and reveals the bound and hidden soul.
It is a faith which we owe to Christ. He changed the
philosopher's opinion and the people's hope into a prac-
tical and abiding persuasion. The angels did not light
up the tomb with their glowing faces and shining gar-
ments until he was laid in it. Then words of good
cheer were heard, which were not passed by as the idle
tales of the superstitious, but were taken up as most
authentic gospels, and proclaimed wherever men, from

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 239

fear of death, were subject to bondage. It is our blessed .
heritage from those who were glad because they had
seen the Lord. It is a faith which we can have in its
power and fulness only so far as we are thoroughly
Christian, not merely in the reception of the outward
facts, but in a conformity to the very heart and mind of
Christianity. It is a faith which must be proportioned
to our other faiths, and chiefly to our confidence in truth
and goodness and immortal love. Not to all the people
is Christ revealed, but to witnesses chosen before of
God, who, though like Thomas they might hesitate for a
moment, could not scoff like the Athenians when Jesus
and the resurrection were named together, since nothing
could be more credible than the rising of such a Lord.
Not of us is it to believe; and yet God's gift is also
our act, and we must exercise ourselves in this grace ;
and a public grief so heavy and so unlooked for, and so
suggestive of anxious questionings as this, which presses
upon all hearts to-day, may challenge and exalt our
faith in things unseen, and help us to taste the powers
of the world to come, even more than a private sorrow.
Let this be the measure of our Christianity. By this
let us know whether we have been the companions and
friends of Jesus, — whether we look at the things
which are seen, or at the things which are not seen,
according as we shall be able to look up from the
grave, and to seek for the living in their appointed
and exalted places. God is not the God of the dead.
Truly to confess Him is to confess the life everlasting.
No hand of violence can rob you of aught living, or
consign you to hopeless sorrowing for the dead, if you

240 SERMONS ON THE

. yourself are truly alive. Find the soul in the body whilst
the body lives, and you cannot be persuaded, — no, not
though an angel from heaven should say it, — that,
when the body dies, the soul too goes down with the
dust into the grave. " Neither wilt thou suffer thine
Holy One to see corruption." Oh, for that strong and
ardent faith, which, in losing a visible person, gains an
invisible life ! — a life which is ours no more by virtue
of corporal contact or contiguity, but flows in upon us
through channels hidden and divine.

It is a blessed faith which enables us, when the man
is gone, to rejoice as we never rejoiced before in his
high and gracious manhood ; and, when the countenance
is changed, to walk more gladly and steadfastly than
ever before in the pure light which illumined it, and
made the hard lines of a plain and often sad face soft
and flowing and almost comely. It is a blessed faith
which so joins us to the wisdom and goodness, to the
honor and gentleness, and all the fair and sweet human-
ities of our friend, that, when he is taken from us in a
moment, we find that, what made him justly dear is
more ours than ever ; net to be groped for among the
dead, but already abroad in this world of the living ;
accomplishing still the will of God on earth, and
amongst the children of men. It is a blessed faith
which suffers us not to linger over our dead beyond the
just time of a natural and healthy sorrow, but commits
and commends us, as soon as may be, to the paths of
our daily life in which he walked ; to the works which
he was not permitted to do, and to the greater works
which he promised ; which makes him more to us, in the

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 241

way of inspiration and guidance, than he could have
been whilst he was in the body. In mourning for the
tabernacle which a mad and wicked hand hath invaded,
do not forget to seize and appropriate the great life
which hath been not so much unclothed as clothed upon.
Disappoint any who may have secretly desired or planned
this great crime, by showing forth, with the enthusiasm
of a new discipleship, the very being, the very persistent
purpose, which they would have put out of the world
had it been possible. And what vengeance is to be
compared with that divine vengeance which multiplies
a thousand-fold the one voice that a cruel death has
silenced, and makes of the truth which was buried in the
ground a word of strength and joy for the whole world ?
There is a crime unto death. It ought not to be
lightly dealt' with. Let no man ask that it may be for-
given ; but, when the ministers of God who bear not
the sword in vain have fulfilled their office, and the
criminal has received the stern sentence, let us remem-
ber, were it only for the honor and the love which we
bear to our dead, the generous and humane spirit that
was so large a part of his noble manhood. I confess
that I have not thought that they mourn for him wisely,
who, renouncing his spirit before his poor outraged clay
was cold, propose to be bitter and revengeful in fact,
though not of course in name, as he was not. Friends, —
Christian friends, — followers of him whose first disciples
were as loving as they were just, let us not forget the
many sad warnings of man's history, the cheats which
his deceitful heart has put upon him ; let us not forget
that what is begun in righteousness and love is often
21

242

ended, and not well, in unrighteousness and wrath. We
shall have lost our noble leader indeed, if Ave lose his
spirit, the wise and considerate mind, the excellent
judgment, the tender, humane heart, that were in him ;
if, with all the wrongs, cruel wrongs, foul wrongs, that
we have suffered as a nation, we forget that Ave are a
Christian nation, and proceed to demand, and that, too,
in the name of our gentle sufferer, measures of severity
which he would never have sanctioned ; so taking
advantage of his dying, to tlnvart one of the high aims
of his living. You knoAv that I have spoken in but one
voice from the beginning of this Avar, pleading for its
rightfulness in the sight of the highest Christianity ; and
so you Avill not misunderstand my Avarning, lest, misled
by passion, and not folloAving, as Ave suppose, our man
of peace, Ave inaugurate a reign of terror and blood.
God grant that our martyr may be our deliverer ; that
he Avho Avas raised up in the most manifest providence
of the Lord to be our counsellor and guide in our years
of sore trial, may still rule and bless the people from
the hiding-place of spiritual pOAver ; and, if Ave have
had occasion to distrust him Avho is uoav called to the
highest seat, may our fears be changed into hopes, and
the desire of the nation be accomplished ! *

* The preacher desires that the paragraphs above may not be
interpreted as recommending lenity to the authors of privy
conspiracy and rebellion ; and he is glad to add that the circum-
stances, well knoAvn to the country, Avhich led so many to distrust
our present national Chief Magistrate, have been explained, by
those Avho speak with authority, to his entire satisfaction.

REV, SAMUEL K. LOTHROP.

2 SAMUEL XIX: 2

And the Victory that Day was turned into Mourning
unto all the people.

Brethken, but one theme can command your attention
this morning. Only the contemplation of one event,
solemn and momentous, looked at in the light of that
inscrutable providence which is ever wise and merciful,
studied in its social and civil, its moral and religious
aspects, is in harmony with the painful emotions that
swell our hearts, the troubled thoughts that are pressing
upon our minds.

Three days since, we gathered here for a service of
humiliation, of human appointment, at the call of the
civil authorities ; God so ordered it, that it became of
necessity a service of gratitude and thanksgiving. The
black cloud of treason and rebellion, which for four
years had lowered over the land, seemed distinctly
broken and scattered, floating away in the distance.
The dawn of approaching peace, of reunion, of pros-
perity, of a glorious and honorable future for the nation,
gave clear indications that it must ere long burst upon

21* (245)

246 SERMONS ON THE

us in splendid effulgence ; so that, though conscious of
our unworthiness, we could not think of our sins so
much as of the divine goodness and mercy.

We expected to gather here this beautiful Easter
Sunday with our thoughts far away from present scenes,
undisturbed by civil cares or anxieties ; travelling back
to that holy morning hour when the gates of the sepul-
chre, sealed and guarded by all the power of the Caesars,
were riven, and " the Crucified " came forth, and the
world awoke to find itself bathed with new light,
clothed with an immortal hope, refreshed with a heav-
enly benediction, that would be felt anew in our hearts
on this grand and solemn anniversary. But again God
has otherwise ordered. We cannot forget that blessed
and stupendous fact in his providence, — the resurrec-
tion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, — but the
echo, coming down to us through the ages, of that
glorious declaration, " He is not here, he is risen,"
which Ave expected would break upon our ears, filling
our hearts with peace and gladness, is lost, as it were,
overborne by the stunning announcement which burst
upon us yesterday morning : " He is dead, — Abraham
Lincoln, the President of the United States, is dead, —
felled by the hand of a dastardly assassin, in the midst
of a scene of quiet and peaceful relaxation from the
oppressive cares of state." We cannot put from our
thoughts that sudden and startling announcement, that
sad and solemn event. It is not necessary that we
should ; nay, it is every way meet that we should not.
The true place to which we should bring this great be-
reavement, this atrocious crime, this national calamity,

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 247

this loss to the world, this event, the magnitude of
whose influences, as they touch the relations and aflect
the policy of our own or other nations, cannot be com-
puted,— the true place to which to bring it and all the
thoughts and emotions it awakens, is the altar of God ;
that we may bow there with a submission as profound
as our sorrow, with a trust as deep and strong as our
necessities.

Brethren, I feel almost incompetent to direct your
thoughts this morning, as 1 have scarcely been able for
the last twenty-four hours to collect and guide my own.
Language seems impotent to give utterance to all that I
think and feel. But, doubtless, your experience has been
similar to my own. Yesterday, after the fir.-t outburst
of my sorrow, and, I am not ashamed to add, of
righteous indignation against the fiendish author of this
terrific tragedy, the instincts of faith and the habit of
my heart prevailed, and I heard, as it were, the Holy
Spirit breathing in my ear the solemn and sublime
injunction, " Be still, and know that I am God ; " and
there was borne in upon my mind, also, that declaration
of the patriarch Jacob, uttered for the comfort of his
children as they were about to be deprived of the coun-
sels of his wisdom and the joy of his presence, " Behold
I die, but God shall be with you." Our first duty, my
friends, in this sad hour, now, as in all great emergencies,
public and private, the only help, comfort, and strength
of our souls is to turn unto God, and lean upon Him.
We must strive to be calm. This calamity which seems
unspeakably great, this bereavement which makes a
nation weep and covers a mighty land with mourning,

248 SERMONS ON THE

this demon deed, instigated by the brutal passions and
perpetrated in the utter moral bewilderment, which, as
many incidents in this war, and the war itself, so pain-
fully and so conclusively testify, the barbarous institu-
tion of slavery begets in the human heart, was within
the control of the Almighty Providence; and, in some
way, which we cannot fathom, it will be made to con-
tribute to our good, and the furtherance of the benignant
purposes of that Providence. We believe this ; we must
strive to feel it, and be calm. Many have been accus-
tomed, of late, to regard, and to speak of Abraham
Lincoln, as a providential man. Political opponents, as
well as friends, have been disposed to acquiesce in tbe
epithet; the idea was fast getting to be the general feel-
ing, the conviction of the nation. It was natural that
this feeling should have arisen, have grown so strong, and
been so cherished as to become a conviction. His history
and character, his slender opportunities, and marked
abilities, the wonderful way in which, under providence,
he has presided over the nation, and by a singularly
wise, calm, unimpassioned, but firm and persevering
policy, carried the country, with honor before the world,
through four years of a civil war which has no parallel
in the record of the nations, seem to justify and demand
that he should be regarded as the man for the crisis,
"a providential man."

'• I called thee from the sheep-cote to be ruler over
Israel," said the Lord to David, and the words have an
application and significance here. The shepherd of
Hebron, called to the throne of Israel, and the humble
citizen of Illinois, raised from the lowly sphere of private

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 249

life to the most august position, and the charge of the
most momentous affairs, as President of the United States,
have a providential similitude, which we may rightfully
recognize. The care of sheep seemed no meet prepara-
tion for the cares of state : and the humble duties, the
limited range of action, and small experience in public
national affairs, embraced in Mr. Lincoln's previous life,
seemed but a meagre preparation for the exalted post he
was called to fill ; the weighty and responsible trusts he
was summoned to discharge. It will be the verdict of
history however, it is the admission of to-day, it is the
testimony of every honest and unprejudiced heart in the
land, that he has discharged these duties amid circum-
stances of unparalleled embarrassment and difficulty, with
vast and singular wisdom. Even his peculiarities of per-
son, manners, and character, unchanged by his elevation
to exalted station and large power, have contributed to his
usefulness and increased his personal influence, because
they have been rightfully interpreted as indications that
the man was greater than his office, and therefore com-
petent to its duties and worthy of its honors. Never
before, I apprehend, his any man been invested with the
august dignity of the Presidency of this great republic,
and been so little changed by it ; so little affected by
the personal aggrandizement, so free from the intellectual
and moral giddiness often consequent upon the position.
He has grown, undoubtedly, since his entrance upon his
high office ; grown immensely and continually ; enlarged
intellectually, developed morally : but he has shown all
along, and concentrated in himself thereby, more and
more, the confidence of the nation, that his heart was as

250 SEEMONS ON THE

warm, his nature as simple, his purpose as honest, his
judgment as strong and clear, his head as cool, amid all
the grandeur and glory of the nation's palace, and the
shaping of the nation's course and policy, as they were
beneath the humble roof of his private dwelling, and
the little routine and the petty cares of his attorney's
office on the Western prairies. Such indifference or
superiority to the influence of outward position is a clear
indication of something great and strong in the character.
Forty hours ago, my friends, I presume we should all
have acquiesced in speaking of Abraham Lincoln as
" a providential man'''' ; and the expression would have
been an indication of a patriotic cheerfulness, trust, and
faith in our hearts. If called upon to justify it, we
should have spoken briefly of these four memorable
years ; of his unquestionable escape from assassination
on his journey to Washington for his first inauguration ;
of the dark prospects, the extraordinary embarrassments
under which he assumed the reins of government, and
entered upon the administration of our affairs ; of his
sagacity, his mingled moderation and firmness at the
outset ; of his wonderful wisdom in following the lead-
ings of Providence and the course of events, as evinced
in his various proclamations and the successive steps
of his policy ; of the feeble life of the nation, — its
existence hanging upon a thread, — and of the all but
impotence of the government, as he received it from the
hands of his predecessor ; and of the healthy, deep-
throbbing life of the nation at this hour ; and of the
government, strong, nay, mighty and irresistible, through
the nation's confidence, — and we should have felt that

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 251

in all this there was an ample justification of the faith
which turned trustingly to him as a man of wonderful
endowments, raised up by Providence to meet a momen-
tous emergency in our national career.

We should have been right in thus feeling ; but —
and here is the point and purpose of what I have said
— if his life was providential, is not his death prov-
idential also ? If God raised him up for a grand
purpose, for a great and noble work, would he permit
his death, and that purpose unaccomplished, that work
not done ? He has not fulfilled all our wishes, answer-
ed all our expectations, discharged all the trusts we
reposed in him ; but has he not done God's work, — the
work God gave him to do for us ? Who shall dare to
assume that he has not ? Who shall refuse to hope and
to believe, that events will reveal the Providence in his
death to be as wise and benignant as the Providence in
his life. Ah, how sad, how bereaved the Israelites felt
when Moses went up into the mountain, and returned
not, but died there alone ! For forty years he had led
them in the wilderness, and, after many misgivings on
their part, become the object of their reverence and
their trust. By counsel and encouragement, by instruc-
tion and example, he had sustained them in all the
perils and privations of their wanderings, and brought
them at length, under the divine guidance, to the banks
of the Jordan, which they were about to pass, and to
the sight of the promised land, which they were about
to possess. He beheld that land, and saw that it was
beautiful and good, but was not permitted to enter it.
Israel wept at his fate and mourned his loss, but found

252 SERMONS ON THE

in Joshua another leader adequate to their great
necessities. So our Israel mourns this day its provi-
dential leader and head. A resemblance to David, in
his elevation from a humble to an exalted station, there
is a resemblance to Moses in the time, though not in the
manner, of his departure. He has led us through four
years of terrible civil war ; amid the occasional mis-
givings of some of his friends, and beneath the conflict
of parties, he has steadily gained upon the confidence,
the respect and affection of the nation : till at length
it may be safely said, that, on Friday last, there was no
man living in whose political wisdom and sagacity, in
whose moderation and magnanimity, in whose simple
honesty of purpose, and broad, unselfish patriotism, the
great mass of the people, of all sections and all parties,
reposed such confidence, as in Abraham Lincoln's. It
was the general, the all but universal feeling, that, in
some just and right way, he would pilot the nation
safely and honorably through to a glorious peace and a
blessed reunion. Like Moses on the banks of the
Jordan, he saw this peace in near prospect, and felt that
the object of all his noble efforts, his days and nights of
anxious thought and painful solicitude, was just within
his grasp. But, like Moses, he was not permitted to
enter into that peace, to attain personally that object.
Suddenly, like a bolt from heaven, the dastard hand of
an assassin did its work, and

« ' He who cared not to be great,
But as he served or saved the State,"

passed from the scene of his glory and his usefulness;

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 253

and the universal joy in our recent triumphs and cheer-
ing prospects, "the victory of that day is turned into
mourning unto all the people."

Brethren, our first and our last duty, the beginning
and the end of our consolation, our only help, is to turn
unto God, and trust ; to feel that the Lord God omnipo-
tent reigneth, and that all will be well. Even beneath
this trust there is sorrow and anxiety in our hearts, 'lhe
death of our President at this crisis is a tremendous loss,
and I would not say one word to diminish your sense of
it ; for it can hardly be over-estimated. It is a great
national calamity, and I feel it to be so. Every nerve
and fibre of my being vibrates to it. I would not feel it
less, or have you feel it less. It comes also in the form
of an atrocious public outrage and murder, with a fear-
ful shock to us and to the world. For the first time
that monster crime, — to be abhorred by every citizen in
every land, but most of all under a government like ours,
— political assassination from the unhallowed promptings
of political and party passions, stains our annals, startles
us from our security, ay, and from our dreams of for-
bearance and tenderness. How far the rebel govern-
ment or leaders, recently at Richmond, Avere privy to the
fiendish purpose so fatally executed, remains to be ascer-
tained and proved : it is not to be assumed. That they
were vindictive, desperate, and cruel enough for such
privity, the stories, too terribly authenticated to be
doubted or denied, of the Libby, of Belle Isle, and of
Andersonville, are conclusive evidence ; and I confess
that my strong disposition to forbear, forgive, and trust,
grows weak; it melts away almost, before that indelible
22

254 SERMONS ON THE

record of inhuman barbarities, deliberately, perseveringly
practised, month afer month, upon defenceless men,
prisoners of war, within immediate reach, within sight
almost of the headquarters of the most distinguished
general of the Confederate armies, whose friends claim
for him that he is a chivalrous, magnanimous, high-
toned gentleman. Let him show that he had no
knowledge of these barbarities, or having knowledge,
had no power to prevent them ; let him show that
he ever uttered to his soldiers or his government a
word of remonstrance against them ; then, but not
till then, may his claim to magnanimity, and the sym-
pathies of his former fellow-citizens, and the compas-
sionate regards of honorable and merciful men, be
admitted. Judging from what we know of his posi-
tion and his power, 'the record is, at present, a foul
blot against his name. Let him wipe it out if he can.
None will rejoice more than I, if he can do so. I wait,
the country waits, the world waits for him to do it, ere
the decision is made as to the estimation in which his
treason, and his character as the great military chieftain
of the rebellion, are to be held. As the record stands,
the rebel government and leaders at Richmond have
shown themselves base and cruel enough to be privy to
this dastard deed of outrage and murder, but it is diffi-
cult to conceive that they were weak enough for that
privity. All human experience, the history of all simi-
lar crimes, would teach them that this would recoil upon
themselves with a terrible vengeance and fearful retribu-
tion,— would dishonor them before the world, make them
and their cause infamous in the judgment of every civil-

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 255

ized government. They must have known, also, all the
leaders and people of the rebel states, if not utterly-
bereft of reason, and blinded by passion, must have per-
ceived and felt that the death of Abraham Lincoln would
deprive them of the best and strongest friend they had
at the North ; of the man whose disposition prompted,
and whose office and influence would enable him to
secure for them as large a forbearance, as generous and
magnanimous a treatment as could possibly be granted
to the authors of so much mischief, — the instigators and
leaders in a political crime so gigantic in its proportions,
its monstrous purpose defeated at such cost of blood and
treasure to the nation. No ! There must be clearer
proof before I can believe that the leaders at Richmond
were so weak and bewildered as to be privy to this con-
spiracy for assassination. There is no heart in the land,
I apprehend, to which this terrible event will bring a
sharper pang than to that of the President of the Con-
federate Stat :s : a pang not of sympathy, but of fear ;
because he will read in it the foreshadowing of his own
doom, the closing of the gates of mercy against himself,
should he ever be brought within the grasp of that gov-
ernment whose laws he has defied, whose liberties he
has trampled upon when he could, and whose existence
he has attempted to destroy.

But though there were no privity, — and for the honor
of our common humanity, I hope it may be clearly shown
that there was none, — a fearful responsibility rests upon
the rebel leaders and government. This crime, " the
deep damnation of this taking off" by assassination,
runs back to them by the irresistible logic of cause and

256 SERMONS ON THE

effect. It is the natural product of the spirit and prin-
ciples they have constantly manifested. It is the full and
perfect out-flowering of that ignorance and passion, that
rancor and hate towards the North w7hich they have stu-
diously endeavored to cherish in the southern heart. It
is the last, culminating, decisive testimony to the debasing,
morally bewildering, and unhumanizing influence of that
institution of slavery which they would have made the
corner stone of the political edifice they proposed to rear.
The j udgment of the world, therefore, the verdict of his-
tory, I apprehend, will hold them largely responsible for
a deed which secures to its perpetrator an unenviable
immortality in the records of crime, gives his name
a conspicuous place on the dark list of those around
whose memories gather more and more, as the years
roll on, the execrations of mankind.

But let us turn from these thoughts. They would
come up in my heart ; I could not prevent it. But I
did not wish to keep them there ; I preferred to let
them out. and so have given them utterance. We have
been stunned by a sudden calamity, and ttand aghast
at the awful mode of its coming. In the midst of our
cheerfulness, under the smiles of a brighter day than
we had known for four years, and whose to-morrow
promised to be brighter still, we have been suddenly
thrown into utter darkness, by the foul murder of the
President of the republic. Without warning or prepa-
ration, we have been visited by what to our short-sighted
wisdom seems an irreparable loss, and in a moment all
our joy in " the victory of that day is turned into mourn-
ing unto all the people" ; and again I urge that our first

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 257

duty is to turn unto God and be calm, our only strength
to have the thought of our hearts and the prayer of our
lips, " the Lord's will be done." God is still with us,
— here is the great consolation and help of the soul.

" Human watch from harm can't ward us :
God will keep, and God will guard us."

Human wisdom, the prophet, the counsellor, the mighty
man, may depart ; but the wisdom of God abides to
illumine a new generation, and to guide his children in
the way. From the beginning until now, and especially
in the great struggle, which, notwithstanding this sore
bereavement, we may still devoutly hope is approaching
its conclusion, our land has received so many tokens of
the divine favor, that to doubt the guardian care of God,
and the merciful purposes of his providence towards this
nation and the interests of liberty and humanity, so
bound up with its preservation, would be a sin. We
may still trust, it is our duty to trust, that behind this
dark cloud there is wisely hid some great mercy, which
shall one day be revealed amid the adoring acknowledg-
ments of ourselves or our children.

After this trust in God, our next duty is to cherish
in grateful reverence the memory of the man and the
magistrate whose, to us untimely, fate Ave mourn, and
gather up the lessons which his example teaches and
his death enforces. I am not adequate, had I time, for
the presentation of the prominent points in his life,
or a sharp analysis and delineation of his character. I
remember, in the only interview I ever had with him,
22*

258 SERMONS ON THE

in the autumn of 1861, at Washington, in company with
twenty or thirty other persons, each of whom had his
special purpose in the visit, and went up in his turn to
present it, that I was at first amused, not to say offended,
at what seemed an undignified levity, and a marvellous
facility in conveying or enforcing his answers to the
various requests presented, by telling some story, the
logic of whose application to the case in point was
unmistakably clear. During this part of the interview
I was led to wonder where was the power ? how had this
man so impressed himself upon the people of the coun-
try, as to be elevated to the position he occupied ? That
wonder ceased, that inquiry was answered, before I left
the presence. A lady made application for the release
of her brother, who had been arrested for disloyalty by
the major-general commanding in the vicinity of Frede-
rick, Maryland. The President declined to interfere, on
the ground that he knew nothing of the circumstances
but what she had told him, and that the arrest and de-
tention were, necessarily, within the discretionary power
of the major-general commanding in the district. Con-
siderable conversation ensued, and some tears were shed ;
and, at length, the President consented to indorse upon
her petition, which was to be forwarded to the major-
general, that he had no objection to the release, provided
the general thought it compatible with the public safety.
As he gave her back the petition, with this indorsement,
he said, and I think I remember very nearly his exact
words : " Madam, I desire to say that there is no man
who feels a deeper or more tender sympathy than I do,
with all cases of individual sorrow, anxiety, and grief

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 259

like yours, which these unhappy troubles occasion ; but I
see not how I can prevent or relieve them. I am here
to administer this Government, to uphold the Constitu-
tion, to maintain the Union of the United States.
That is my oath ; before God and man, I must, I mean
to the best of my ability, to keep that oath ; and, how-
ever much my personal feelings may sympathize with
individual sorrows and anxieties, I must not yield to
them. They must all give way before the great public
exigencies of the country ! " I shall never forget the
simple majesty, the grandeur and force with which these
few sentences were uttered, or their effect. In a moment
the room was as still as death. The little audience that
had, just before, been laughing at his stories, were awed
and impressed, thrilled through and through by these
few solemn and earnest words. They were a revela-
tion of the man. They made me feel that there was
a power in him that gave him a right to be where he
was. That right he has vindicated more and more every
hour since his first inauguration. That he has made no
mistakes, that he was at all times superior to the weak-
nesses of our nature, or the faults of humanity, it would
be neither wise nor truthful to maintain. I look for
light and explanation to be thrown upon some acts and
incidents of his administration ; but I have confidence
that that light will reveal reasons which will show them
to have been wise and right, and establish a patriotic
integrity of purpose that will do him honor. In general,
the exhibition of himself, made these last four years, is
proof to us, and to the world, that he was largely
endowed with many large and noble qualities; and for

2G0 SERMONS ON TUB

his fidelity in his high office, for his wisdom, firmness,
and moderation, for his genuine simplicity and homely
ways, for his tenderness and compassion, his watchful
guardianship of the great interests of liberty, and all his
incalculable services to the country, which ha has done
as much as any man to save, I hold him in grateful
reverence and honor ; and now that he has fallen, a noble
martyr to a noble cause, coming generations will rise up,
and bless his name, which will grow grander and brighter
through all coming time, and stand highest among the
names of those whom the world cannot afford tu forget.
In some lines from Tennyson's Ode on the Duke of
Wellington, I find the most fitting description of his
character and our duty to his memory :

" O, friends ! our chief State oracle is mute ;
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,
The statesman, moderate, wise, resolute,
Whole in himself, a common good.
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Our greatest, yet with least pretence,
Kich in saving common sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity, sublime.
O voice, from which their omens all men drew,
O iron nerve, to true occasion true,
O fallen at length that tower of strength,
Which stood four square to all the winds that blew.
His life was work, his language rife
With rugged maxims hewn from life,
His voice is silent in your council hall
Forever: and whatever tempests lower
Forever silent; even if th<.y broke
In thunder, 6ilent ; yet remember all
He spoke among you, and the man w/io spoke."

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 2G1

But there is other work for us than remembrance.
We may not dwell always on the past. The exigencies
of the country, the duties of patriotism, the calls to be
faithful in the great struggle to which the nation has
been summoned, and which is not yet ended, these
abide ; and the national calamity over which we mourn
should be in all our hearts a quickening incentive to
persevering effort. " God buries his workmen, but carries
on his work." The individual dies, the generations pass;
but the interests of humanity remain, and the nation
continues. Abraham Lincoln is dead. Peace be to his
memory, and immortal his fame. But the President of
the United States still lives, the embodiment of the
nation's life and power; and the first duty of patriotism
now, — the duty to which this open grave around which
the nation is standing gives a mighty emphasis, — is to
gather around that President, and by the fresh, earnest,
manly expression of our sympathy and confidence, give
him strength and assurance for the high duties he is
suddenly called to discharge. There is one dark hour,
which he perhaps remembers with a keener sorrow than
any of us. Is not a ray of light thrown upon that hour
by recent events ? What one conspirator accomplished
by a fatal pistol-shot, may not another in another instance
have attempted through the poisoner's drugs, so that an
incident of the fourth of March last, especially when the
subsequent illness and prostration are considered, ought
in justice perhaps to be interpreted not as a personal
fault, but the crime of others ? This is clear : we are
not to confound an accident with a habit, and our first
duty — the first duty of the nation — is to let the new

262 SERMONS ON THE

President see that it remembers only, and recalls with
grateful confidence, his undaunted loyalty, his noble
efforts, his patriotic labors and sacrifices from the begin-
ning of the war until now. As yet, he is to a certain
extent an unknown quantity to us, as Abraham Lincoln
was four years ago. It depends largely upon us, the peo-
ple, to afford the elements that shall solve the problem,
and determine what this unknown quantity is, its value
and its power. Let the new President feel that he has
the respect and confidence of the people, and it will help
mightily to make him and keep him worthy of them.
Let him feel that he has the respect and confidence of
the people and it will be to him a great power, whereby
to maintain the honor and glory, to secure the peace and
prosperity of the nation.

In conclusion, my friends, let me urge you to a
personal improvement of this solemn event. While it
reveals to us the depths of wickedness and of moral
madness into which the soul may be plunged, it gives
an impressive emphasis to the injunction, "Be ye also
ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of
Man cometh." Of what awaits us beyond the present
moment, we know with certainty but this one thing —
death. Exalted station, important services, noble useful-
ness, the charge of public trusts and interests of un-
speakable magnitude, these nor aught else can avail to
stay the hand or avert the blow of death. In his
presence and before his power there is a stern and
solemn equality of all men. All must die. But how, or
when, or where ? All inquiry is baffled, speculation is
vain, reasoning at fault. In apparent peril, we escape ;

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 263

seemingly secure, we fall. The President at Richmond,
we feared. It was an exposure, but a beautiful and
touching drama. Returned to Washington, we breathe
freely. He is safe. Nothing can touch him in the
capital. But there, unannounced, with no foreshadow-
ing, the destroyer met him ; and, in a moment, of all
that he had, and of all that he was, nothing is of import-
ance to him, nothing stands him in stead now but his
goodness of heart, the simple honesty of faith, through
which he sought to do God's will and promote man's
good. Our death, the death of any one of us, can never
attract the attention, or be the great public event his
was, but to ourselves personally it will be more import-
ant and solemn ; and, like his, may come suddenly, when
we least expect it. By holiness of heart and life, by
consecration of ourselves through faith in our Lord
Jesus Christ to great purposes for which he suffered and
died, by a daily walk in the light of his truth and the
culture of his spirit, let us be ever ready, so that life, if
prolonged, may be noble, useful, holy ; and death, when
it comes, may be gain, — the gain of heaven and immor-
tality.

REV. EDWARD E. HALE.

2:3

1 CORINTHIANS XV: 57.

Who giveth us the Victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ.

The contrasts of Passion Week are those of human
triumph, of death in agony, and of Etebnax Life.

The week hegins with the Sunday of victory, — Palm
Sunday, — when the Lord rides in triumph into the
city. From day to day the triumph takes different
forms, till on Friday the whole changes. His life ends
at the hands of treachery and murder. Then comes the
last of Jewish Sabhaths, — that Saturday sad beyond
words. And then on this first day of the week, He
rises : all the chains of earth are broken forever ; and,
from that moment, man knows he is immortal. Human
triumph ! Then, death in agony ! Then, the unveiling
of Eternal Life. These are our contrasts. Hidden in
them are our lessons. Never since has the world
needed them as we need them this day !

Of their Sunday of triumph we cannot paint the
picture, without recalling their year, as it had gone by.
These apostles, who could not understand, could feel
and wonder. They had walked up and down through

268 SERMONS ON THE

the cities of Israel. They had proclaimed the new-
kingdom. They had named the King. Nay, they had
heard him sometimes make fit promise of his empire.
He had spoken of it as the one thing certain. He had
laid down its constitution and laws. At his word
thousands had followed. To his word thousands had
listened. At his word, again, the multitudes had melted
away. The very voice of God had testified that here
was God's beloved Son.

Yet there was, till now, no sign of empire ! He
would not give a sign. If he fed these thousands, it
was that they might leave him. His prophet, John,
had been beheaded by a tyrant. His own overtures to
the rulers had been rejected with scorn. We can
imagine then the darkness which brooded over even the
faithful's faith, till the Sunday of victory came. Then,
after such anxiety, all seems changed. They have
endured to the end. Surely now they are safe.
Hosanna ! hosanna ! Victory ! victory ! Even the
capital has opened its gates to us. Here are coming
out its very children, with their palms and their songs.
" The Son of David ! The Son of David ! Hosanna !
hosanna ! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of
the Lord ! Hosanna in the highest ! " Thus the week
begins.

Easy to picture such exultant joy, when seen on a
background of a year's defeat, anxiety, long-suffering,
and gloom.

Nor, as the week goes by, does their mood change.
True, the capital can open its gates but once. There
can be but one triumphal entry. When the enemy sur-

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 269

renders Sunday, he cannot surrender again on Monday.
But the week seems victory ! Speculators and brokers
are driven, crestfallen, from the temple. The lovers of
the nation's enemies follow them, — the Herodians. The
lovers of wealth ; they are driven out also, set to scorn,
— the Sadducees. The hypocrites who exalt them-
selves and curse the people, all are rebuked in turn, —
the Pharisees. " Lord, what shall be the sign of thy
coming ? " That question is key-note to the apostles'
feeling, when the eve of Friday comes.

And then, victory is changed in a moment into
treachery, blood, and death !

Of his feelings we can say nothing but what he tells
us. There is no likeness which we can compare to him.
But, his enemies : ah, wicked men and mean men are
so common, that we have seen them with these eyes.
Whether they deal with the son of God, or whether they
work in some mean cabal of their own lust, they are
always the same. What the soldiery of Herod could
not do ; what the officers of Caiaphas could not compass ;
what Pilate was not mean enough to descend to, —
could be wrought out, when that fatal Friday came, by
this coward Judas, with his midnight kiss. Of Judas,
the world has never known precisely what was his
fate, or what his character ; whether he were finished
villain, or whether he were fanatic fool. Satan chooses
such accomplices. Such tool served the purpose
of crafty Caiaphas ; and, by the work of such tool,
even the Lord of Life can be betrayed. They seize
him ; they lead him out to Calvary ; they kill him,
the world's best friend; nay, their best friend, if they
23*

270 SERMONS ON THE

knew it ; the only friend in the Universe of God,
who, at that hour, was seeking to save them. So that
never were words so terribly true as the words of his
prayer, — " they know not what they do." From the
terrible retribution which came upon them so soon ; the
retribution in which women drank the blood of their
own infants ; in which brothers fought brothers to the
death, in the ruins of their own temple, — he whom that
day they slew was the only being who could have saved
them. And so, praying for them, he died.

And his mother and his well-beloved crept out from
their hiding-places, and wept over him ! And they laid
him in a tomb, wherein never man lay. And his
enemies sealed the stone with such cements as man can
devise ; and set over it such sentry police as Roman
wit in arms had trained. And then came the Sabbath,
— the Jewish Sabbath, the last day of the week ; —
saddest of days till then.

" Is this the end ? " we can almost hear Nathaniel
saying to Philip ; " better I had staid brooding under
my fig-tree ; my poet-dreams, so vague and dim, were
yet better than this horrid certainty ! " "Is this the
end ? " might Andrew say to Simon Peter ; " better we
had swept the lake, — better traded fish in the market-
place our lives long, than come to look on such
horror!" "Is this the end?" might John, son of
Thunder, say to his fierce, brother James. " Better had
we cast in our lot with Theudas, rushed on the Roman
spear and shield, and died in fight like men ! " " Is this
the end ? " might Mary mother, whisper ; " better had
my child died in his infant innocence, when Herod slew

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 271

the others in Bethlehem." But no, this is net the
end.

" Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world."

" The works that I do, shall he do also ; and greater
works than these shall he do."

Such is the promise. And when the sad Saturday
has at last crept by ; and when the light of this darker
morning just begins to break ; when, on that night, so
cold, and black, there just creeps up the ray of promise,
lo, it is a blush of hope ! The grave cannot hold him.
These keepers fall fainting on the ground. This man-
sealed rock rolls, tottering, from its bed. And he is
risen ! as he said.

He was the well beloved Son of God. Yes ; and we
are all God's children. Children of God's nature, —
and therefore immortal, as is he. We are his children.
Children ? Yes ! and therefore he gives to us the
victory.

God is with us, and we are with him. Therefore
there is no death to us, nor to his purpose failure.
It may please him to call away even our Saviour
from our sight. But if he goes away, the Holy
Spirit comes ! It may please him to bring in his
kingdom, as Israel has not dreamed. But, none the
less certainly, does his kingdom come ! It may please
him to win that victory by the Saviour's death on
Calvary ; nay, to give to a dying thief at his Saviour's
side the first laurels of triumph. The victory may be
won when Stephen faints ; when James is beheaded ;
when Paul and Barnabas are stoned. But none the less

272 SERMONS ON THE "

is it victory ! It is not upon fields of battle only that
lie asks for his martyrs. At the hands of Herod,
dying of lust, he will call away St. James. At the
wish of a dancing harlot, will John Baptist give his
head. But they are martyrs still ! And when their
Master dies, because he has given a Judas the access
to his person ; when, on the morning of this " day of
days," he rises ; to all such martyrs, nay to all God's
martyrs in all time, — to all their brethren — nay,
to all his brethren, in all time, — God promises, that,
while they will and do of his good pleasure, He will
give to them the victory !

[The choir then sang the anthem, by Rev. Henry
Ware: "Lift your glad voices in triumph on high."
After the anthem, Mr. Hale said : ]

I cannot think that it is necessary for me to try
to illustrate the lesson of scripture. The contrasts
which we have been tracing in the history, as we might
have traced them last year or any year since that history
passed, teach us the lessons of to-day, so that we cannot
fail to learn them. We often tell you from the pulpit
that there is no experience of your lives, however glad
or however painful, however great or however small, for
which you do not find fit lesson in these experiences of
your Saviour's life. I do not know whether you always
believe this. But I am sure you feel it and believe it in
the great trial of to-day, — in these terrible contrasts of
the week that has gone by. Sunday, our day of triumph :
and, M inday, again, we thronged the temple here with

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 273

our praises. Each day, a new victory ; each day a
new congratulation; till, when Thursday came, — rthe
fast day of our old Puritan calendar, — we did not know
whether fasting belonged to us. Could the children of
the bride-chamber fast indeed ? Who were we that we
should condescend to fasting and humiliation ?

My friends ! in the few words which I spoke to you
on that day, — the last words which I spoke to you
before this morning, — I said that Christian humiliation
and Christian thanksgiving belonged together. We gave
God the glory, which we dared not claim ourselves.
"When I am weak, then I am strong." That is the
Christian's ejaculation, and on that Thursday of victory
and thanksgiving, it was very easy for us to repeat it !

It ought to be as easy to repeat it to-day ! Would
God it were ! Fasting and rejoicing are strangely min-
gled indeed to-day. The day of a nation's grief is the
day of the church's rejoicing. Fittest day of all, indeed,
for the day of such grief; for, but for this resurrection,
this immortality of which to-day is token and symbol,
such grief were intolerable ! But for to-day's promise
of victory, what should we have worth living for? It is
not simply that this day assures us of the immortal life
of the good, great man, who, in an instant, puts off this
mortal body that he may put on his spiritual body. It
is not simply that to-day tells us all is well with him.
It is to the country, which he loved and served, that
to-day, in its promises, gives a like assurance. That
death has no power over the immortal spirit ; that is the
lesson of to-day. That Jesus Christ gives victory to his
flock, in giving them the help, comfort, and blessing of

274 SERMONS ON THE

the Most High ; that promise is sealed to-day. That
the eternal laws of God reign in men's affairs, and that
men may trust him if they strive to follow those laws ;
that is the promise of his victory. That the republic is
eternal if it makes itself a part of his kingdom. If its
laws conform to his laws, no cerements can bind it,
and no tombs can hold it. If it serve God, God gives
to it immortality.

I dare not trust myself to speak a word regarding this
simple, godly, good, great man, who, in a moment, has
been called from the rule over a few cities to be master
over many things, in that higher service where he enters
into the joy of his Lord. To speak of him I must seek
some other hour. Our lesson for to-day is, that the
kingdom of God comes, and is eternal. The republic, if
in simple faith it strive to make itself a part of that
kingdom, lives forever. When we built this church, four
years ago, we painted here upon the wall before you the
beginning of the angels' song, in the words :

" Glory to God in the highest."

It was in the very outset of war ; our own boys were
coming home to us bleeding from the field, or were lying
dead after the battle. And we stayed our hands at those
words. We did not add the other words of the promise.
But when last Sunday came, with its glad tidings, when it
seemed as if we had endured to the very end, we ven-
tured, in the fulfilment of the glad prophecy, to complete
our imperfect inscription, and to add here the rest of the
blessed legend :

"And on earth peace, good will toward men."

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 275

The martyrdom of Good Friday does not make us veil
the motto, though we read it through our tears. Of
such martyrs, it is as true as ever, that their blood is the
seed of the church. Because they die, the kingdom
comes ! We do not forego our hope in the promise,
" On earth peace, and good will among men." The
President may be killed to-morrow, and his successor
may be killed to-morrow, and his successor, and his ;
but the republic lives ! While it seeks to do God's will,
to will and to do of his good pleasure, He works with it,
and gives it immortality. " Fear not little flock, it is
your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

REV. A. A. MINER,

'24

PSALMS LXXXIX: 18.

The Lord is our Defence, and the Holt One of Israel
is our King.

Most welcome truth, when the current of events seems
sweeping us away. Scarce two short weeks ago, pow-
erful armies were watching each other at the gates of
the rebel capital, as a beast of prey watches his victim.
The invincible army of Northern Virginia had been as-
sailed in the terrible battles of the Wilderness, had been
forced to retreat, day by day, until they were driven
within their intrenchments at Richmond, and, for nearly
a year, had been held in the mortal grasp of the Federal
power. By a constant tension of forces, and a steady
pressure of military vigor, our Lieutenant- General had
extended his left, threatening the rebel communications,
until Petersburg and Richmond became untenable, and
the news of their hasty evacuation, leaving behind five
hundred guns and vast military stores, filled the whole
North with joy and exultation.

Hotly pursued by the cavalry of the eagle-eyed Sheri-
dan, the retreating hosts were harassed on their flank
and rear, depleted in numbers, despoiled of their weap-

(279)

280 SERMONS ON THE

ons and supplies, broken in spirit, and compelled to
surrender, as prisoners, an instalment of a half dozen
major-generals and thirteen thousand men. It was a
prophecy of what a few days more of unflinching pur-
pose would accomplish upon the foe.

Scarcely had the echoes of this triumph died away,
when the stillness of our Sabbath evening was broken
by the news of final and triumphant victory in the capit-
ulation of the rebel commander, and of all that remained
of his traitorous hordes. From within the city of Rich-
mond, our noble President sent despatches to Wash-
ington, assuring the country that the rebel stronghold
had surrendered, that the boastful army of treason had
become a humbled fugitive, and, at length, a subdued
and prostrate captive. Joy was unbounded. Gratitude
surged in our hearts, like the heavy swell of the sea.
Spontaneous assemblies burst forth in praise, rent the
air with their acclamations, and pledged anew, everlast-
ing fidelity to country and to God.

But, while the glorious hope of coming peace and of
universal freedom was gladdening our dreams, we were
aroused by another voice. Our noble President is
dead, — died suddenly, — died by the hand of the foul
assassin, — died surrounded by his friends, and in a
public place. Terrible is the revulsion of feeling occa-
sioned by this event. The public heart is paralyzed.
We are cast down from the very summit of joy into the
deep abyss of grief. Oh, how changed the aspect of
the country ! Yesterday we were strong in the confi-
dence we reposed in the best of earthly rulers. To-day
man sc ems as nothing ; less than a feather borne on

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 281

by the breeze. We involuntarily feel after the Unseen.
We listen for the echo of Jehovah's footsteps along the
hillsides of our country. An audible voice from the
heavens seems to say, " Be still, and know that I am
God."

It were vain, in this hour of excitement, to attempt a
delineation of the good man's life. Born in a State
which could by no means claim to be in the van of our
civilization, of parentage in the narrowest circumstances,
with only the rudest and most meagre instrumentalities
for culture at command, he acquired but a very inade-
quate education whether general or professional, and
entered upon the practice of the law. In the great school
of life he soon rose to eminence in his calling ; and the
people of Illinois, in an hour of sharp political conflict,
called him to bear up the standards of liberty. It was
by his famous senatorial contest with the late Hon.
Stephen A. Douglas for the championship of the State,
that he became most favorably known to the country at
large. They were accustomed to meet assembled mul-
titudes, and, face to face, on the same day, canvass the
principles to which they were respectively consecrated.
I well recollect how deeply at the time I was impressed
on reading those debates in a western paper, by the
tone of candor exhibited by Mr. Lincoln, by his great
tact in the conduct of his argument, as well as by his
shrewdness of retort and quaintness of reply. The
arrjumentum ad hominem was a favorite instrument with
him, and was rarely employed in vain. His fulness of
anecdote, so effective in quickening the pulse and cheer-
24*

282 SERMONS ON THE

ing the heart, served a most valuable ulterior end, in
compassing all the elements of a forcible argument, and
carrying deep conviction to his auditory.

It was from the conspicuous position he had thus
gained, that he was called, in the providence of God, to
the first place in the gift of the nation. You remember
the great enthusiasm of the people as they skirted his
pathway from Illinois to Washington. You remember
his hair-breadth escape from the hand of the assassin as
he passed through the notorious city of Baltimore. You
remember the surprise of the dignitaries at the capital
of the nation when they awoke of a morning, and found
the " coming man" already there. You remember the
meekness with which he has borne himself through these
four long years of fratricidal strife. You have observed
his condescension to all classes of persons, official and
private, high and low, rich and poor, learned and ignor-
ant, white and black.

Nor is our admiration of this great man excited alone
by his private walk and bearing. To the virtues of
temperance, integrity, and honor, he has added the
example of magnanimous and lawful rule. True, great
needs have compelled great sacrifices, and we have
reared our hecatombs of slain, and have poured our
treasures without stint into the seething caldron of this
rebellion. Great dangers have called for unusual meas-
ures,— unusual in a country where peace is indigenous,
and the citizens are strangers to the arts of war. But
these have all been lawful and just. Whatever have
been our judgments in the past, the voice of calumny,

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 283

at home and abroad, is now hushed forever ; and craven
monarchs, strangers to his virtues, will henceforth sing

♦'He
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off."

But this crime is not solitary. The bayoneting of
our colored prisoners of war, the tortures of death by
slow starvation, the stripping of prisoners and exposing
them to death by cold, the converting of the bones of
the dead into amulets, the hanging of inoffensive citizens
for opinion's sake, and a thousand other untold enormi-
ties, bear it dreadful company. The foul institution of
slavery is the accursed mother of them all.

Not only is this crime not solitary, but it is not the
crime of a single man. Whether the recognized con-
spirators are few or many, the animus of the assassin's
blow flows from a million hearts. It is found in that,
wide-spread disloyalty that has brought upon the nation
all the woes of a protracted civil war. The crime itself
is but a single drop of the spray from the topmost wave
of the rebellion.

Hence it is a crime of startling magnitude. Loved as
was our revered Chief Magistrate, an assault upon him
is an assault upon the nation's heart. The constitutional
head of the government, the executive power centred in"
his hands. The vast responsibility of our military and
naval operations ; the condition of our internal relations,
not undisturbed by the Indian tribes upon our borders ;

284 SERMONS ON THE

our judicial, postal, financial, and industrial affairs; and
especially the delicate and difficult duties growing out
of our foreign relations, — all demanded, and received,
his most careful and candid thought. The protection
we enjoy in our homes, the continuous workings of our
institutions, and the security we feel for the future, are
all promoted by the fidelity of our now-lamented Pres-
ident. To twenty millions of people he has been a
leader in the darkest hour of civil war : to four millions
more he has been a deliverer from the infuriated oppres-
sor ; to yet eight millions more he has been an unrecog-
nized saviour from utter extermination by their own
suicidal passions. When the assassin deals a blow at
such a man, and breaks into the citadel of life, he deals,
at the same time a blow at the life of the nation itself,
and, consequently, at the liberty and justice and equality
which the nation represents. Such an act is most dam-
ningly infamous in the eyes of men, and inexpressibly
blasphemous in the eyes of God. Unhappy city that
gave the assassin birth ! The home of disorder, the
nursery of rioters, the shelterer of those murderers that
shed the first Massachusetts blood in this great struggle,
and now the mother^ of the nation's parricide ! Pity,
oh, pity unhappy Baltimore !

Such a crime naturally begets sad apprehensions. It
breaks down our confidence and stuns the public heart.
It distracts and confuses the public mind. It produces
a chaotic state of feeling incompatible with the duties
of the hour, and unfavorable to unity of effort. The
executive chair being vacant, some may fear that the
affections of the nation will not so warmly welcome

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 285

another occupant, especially as he will be a Southern
man. The blindness of the South may give new suste-
nance to the rebellion, and the leaders may be inspired
(the Satanic influence seems sufficiently potent) to
renewed and more vigorous efforts, taxing the energies
and still further trying the patience of the loyal men of
the land. The news of such a crime may unfavorably
influence foreign governments. They little appreciate
the unguarded freedom with which our magistrates
mingle with the people. They may not at once compre-
hend that this enormous crime is as foreign to the genius
of our government and to the spirit of the loyal North,
as is the accursed institution that inspired it. England
may forget her gunpowder-plot of two hundred and fifty
years ago, aimed at the destruction of the king and the
whole parliament, and defeated alone by one of the con-
spirators desiring to save a Romish lord. She may forget
the unsuccessful attempts made upon the life of her noble
Queen. France may forget that her military Emperor
has been a target for the assassin's pistol. And, forget-
ting those and the like transactions, they may find it
convenient to consider this great crime as a peculiar
symptom of Democratic turbulence, and thus construct
it into a barrier against Democratic tendencies in their
own lands. There may be new danger of foreign com-
plications on another ground. Murder knows no rank.
Murderers at St. Albans, fleeing to Canada, have been
treated simply as raiders and belligerents. Should the
assassins at Washington make a similar escape, and
find a similar welcome, what can save us from a new
and terrible conflict? These and like considerations

286 SERMONS ON THE

will have different degrees of weight in different
minds.

For myself, I turn to the future full of hope. Dark
as were the heavens yesterday, already the clouds hegin to
lift. The people will rally from this stunning blow ; not
simply to the level of their former purpose, but to a more
discerning and a more determined purpose. The pro-
bable comprehensiveness of the conspiracy is baffled.
However it may have aimed at the heads of several of
the departments, it counts but a single victim ; others
escaping by a seeming interposition of providence,
impressing us with the truth that " the Lord is our
defence ; and the Holy One of Israel our king."

Perhaps we were in danger of forgetting this. The
rebellion was manifestly waning : apparently breaking
up. We had out-numbered the rebels, out-generalled
them, out-flanked them, out-witted them, and whipped
them. Were we not too confidently feeling that we
owed it all to a few men ? Was not our trust too
much in man, too little in God? Did we sufficiently
remember that the " Holy One of Israel is our King ?"

Perhaps, also, we were too little disposed to be
thorough in our work. The well-defined labor of war
appears to be chiefly past. The difficult, the untried,
the unprecedented task of re-construction is before us.
Perhaps we had not the nerve for it ; were not equal to
the stern work of dealing with arch-traitors, of meting
out punishment to leading rebels, and hanging wholesale
murderers, as we would those of less criminality. Who
can say that we have not had a lesson on this point ?
Who can deny that the magnanimity we were cherishing

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 287

has received a severe shock, and that we have been made
to feel that we should deal with great villains as certainly
as with small offenders, and far more severely? Some of
our cotemporaries may, indeed, invoke endless perdition
on the heads of these assassins of a nation's life ; and
they as richly deserve it as mortals can. But between
endless ruin and absolute exemption from punishment,
there is a very broad margin within which the line of
duty may fall ; and when we remember the very general
inclination of the people, the various sects of religionists
included, to mitigate the punishment provided by human
laws, thus showing, on a broad scale, the popular notion
of justice unwarped by religious theories, such inclina-
tion may be regarded, within certain limits, as the voice
of God, who always mingles mercy with judgment.
Let us, then, with one voice, grant forgiveness to the
ignorant and deluded, but now repentant masses, and
demand expatriation or death for the ambitious, crafty,
and fiendish leaders. Thus may we teach all future
traitors the hazards of their enterprise, and their pro-
bable doom.

However such matters may be adjusted, let us not
doubt that the people of this widely extended country
will prove even more determined than ever. The insti-
tutions of the land have lost none of their preciousness.
They are not weakened by this sad event. The assas-
sination of our honored President shocks all our hearts ;
but it gives no shock to the machinery of government.
All the heads of departments, and every member of
Congress might be cut off, and we should spring to
our feet, extemporize another government, and demon-

288 SERMONS ON THE

strate to the world that we live in institutions rather
than in men.

Why, indeed, should we be apprehensive ? The army
remains intact. Our military successes, under God, will
continue. Our Lieutenant-General has been thoroughly
proved, and bears with him the entire confidence of the
nation. His forces are now within supporting distance
of each other, while the army of treason is shorn of half
its numbers, besides being dispirited and broken. Hav-
ing accomplished so much, with the blessing of God,
how can we fail to finish the work ? If there has ever
been an hour when we have faltered in our purpose, that
hour has now gone by. Henceforth we are a unit, whose
energies are consecrated to the most patriotic service.

And shall we not find a satisfactory leader in our new,
let me say, God-given President. It is true he is as yet
untried. But four years ago Abraham Lincoln was
untried ; and the trial has endeared him to all hearts
— has called forth a nation's gratitude in his re-election
to the highest office in our gift, and made his death the
occasion of a deeper and more general sorrow than we
had ever before known. "Who can say that his mantle
has not fallen on one altogether worthy of it ? President
Johnson, though untried in that office, is not unknown
to the country. Through a long public career, his fidel-
ity has been unquestioned. Born and reared in the
midst of slavery, he knows its baneful influence and its
crushing power. Cherishing in purest affection the
Union and Liberty, he has felt the iron of secession
enter his soul. Acquainted minutely and in detail with
the spirit and purpose of the rebel leaders, he may be

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 289

better prepared than Mr. Lincoln himself to estimate
their deep demerit, and mete to them the meed of justice
as traitors before the Jaw.

It is narrated of Mr. Johnson that, in October last, on
an occasion of addressing some thousands of colored
people in the city of Nashville, if I remember correctly,
he exhorted them to patience, and assured them that
God would raise up for them a Moses to lead them out
of the wilderness. His auditors shouted, " You shall
be our Moses!" Mr. Johnson modestly replied that
he was not equal to so important a labor. But they
repeated their claim, "You shall be our Moses; we
want no other than you." "Well, then," said Mr.
Johnson, " I will be your Moses." Was this incident
prophetic ?

I have rejoiced that our merchants and men of busi-
ness, both in Boston and New York, have made haste to
give him assurances of confidence and support. He will
be surrounded, I trust, by the same experienced advisers
who have stayed up the hands of his predecessor, and
can command the same resources, and the support of
the same constituency, as have borne us through the
storm of the last four years. Shall we not all welcome
him, then, to our hearts, and pray the blessing of God
to be with him ?

These are grave experiences through which our nation
is passing. The discipline of a life-time is condensed
into the lessons of an hour. The significance of all his-
tory from the beginning of the world is in the events of
the last few days. Can these events fail to bring us
profit ? Can we fail to discern the dangers whence we
25

290 ^ SERMONS ON THE

are escaping ; the deep wickedness whence they sprang ?
Can they fail to snatch us out of the ruts of custom and
of customary prejudices, and to teach us, mid the sharp
chastisements of the Divine hand, the dignity and the
glory of right, and the fearfulness of injustice and wrong ?
Can they fail to purify the nation's heart, and enlarge
the promise of its coming glories ? Will they not tone
down the rehellion itself, and make the leaders turn
back from then- purpose as from a fathomless abyss ?

Who shall assign limits to the providential blessings
which late events, victorious and tragic, may be made to
yield ? A transcendentlygood man has been taken from
us ; but other good men remain. Since " God is our
defence," since " the Holy One of Israel is our King,"
we may affirm his continuous watchcare. The very
existence of our nation seems providential. The great
eras in our history reveal the divine purpose. But no
period is equally instructive with that of the last four
years. No work is more important or glorious than the
emancipation of the slaves. No agent has been more
conspicuously providential than Abraham Lincoln him-
self. Startling, then, as is the manner of his death,
who will exclude the event from the oyerrulings of the
divine hand ?

" God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform."

Providence does not skip events, or omit opportuni-
ties. If the crucifixion of our Lord, through the malig-
nities of the Jewish hierarchy, is made a means of the
salvation of the world, is it too much to hope that the

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 291

death of Abraham Lincoln, through agencies not less
malignant, may be overruled to the good of our deeply
afflicted country ? Called from us at the culmination of
his fame, he may be more to us in the coming years,
than he could have been had he still tarried in the flesh.
He died as a martyr dies.

•« The voice at midnight came ;
He started up to hear :
A mortal arrow pierced his frame ;

He fell, but felt no fear.
*****

" His spirit, with a bound,

Burst its encumbering clay ;
His tent, at sunrise, on the ground,
A darkened ruin lay."

Bowing here, at the altar of God, shall we not renew
our zeal in the great cause of liberty and righteousness ?
Standing upon those principles, which are the foundation
of our national edifice, shall we not hold ourselves ready
for every needed sacrifice, of time, of ease, of resources,
of sweet life itself, if we may perpetuate the blessings
which have been transmitted to us ? Especially should
you, young men, and particularly those of you, who,
through liberal culture, are seeking fields of widest use-
fulness, enter in at the open door of opportunity, which
the new order of things proffers you. A nation waits
your service. Our country calls for help. " The Holy
One of Israel " sanctions the call. In patriotic devotion,
then, consecrate yourselves anew to the good of man and
the glory of God.

REV. JAMES REED.

ADDRESS.*

The event which calls us together is unprecedented
in the history of our country. It seems almost incredible
that in this nineteenth century of the Christian era, and
in this land of free self-government, so horrible a deed
could have been perpetrated, as that which has taken
from us, almost in an instant, our beloved and honored
President. "War is bad enough. It is tolerated by well-
disposed men, only as a painful necessity. The nature
and condition of mankind at present are such, that, so
far as we can judge, certain evils cannot be removed
without it ; and, as we have lately had abundant oppor-
tunity to prove, individuals may be actively engaged
in it without any revengeful or unkindly feelings.
Yet, war, at best, is bad enough, and every good man
must rejoice when its ends have been successfully
accomplished, and a genuine peace is the result of it.
But there are no terms too scathing to designate the
bloody work of the assassin. It seems to be the very
sum and substance of human wickedness. The blood

* Delivered Wednesday, April 19, 1865.
(295)

296 SERMONS ON THE

in our veins runs cold, as we read the harrowing details,
— how the villain, armed to the teeth, pursues his inno-
cent and unsuspecting victim ; watches his opportunity
from day to day, and from hour to hour ; then approaches
him stealthily from behind, and, all unseen, inflicts the
fatal wound. When at last, rejoicing in his infamy, he
shrieks out his exultant motto, it does, indeed, appear
as if hell itself had broken loose, and were enjoying a
momentary triumph.

The unparalleled atrocity of the crime is heightened
in the present instance by its striking contrast with the
character of its victim. However much many may have
differed from him on questions of political expediency,
all men bear witness to his singular purity and tender-
ness of heart. If he had been capable of intrigue and
violence, — if he had shown signs of a vindictive and
unforgiving temper, — this deed, terribly dark at best,
would not have shown in such appalling blackness. But
it is probable that he who was thus remorselessly shot
down had not a single unkind feeling towards any one,
The saying is in everybody's mouth, that those, on whose
behalf this villany was done, have lost thereby their best
friend.

At this very moment the funeral obsequies are pro-
gressing at the capital of the nation; and, by official
invitation, all churches and denominations are contribut-
ing their part towards them. It is for this purpose that
we have now assembled here.

There is no reason why we may not perform all the
essential part of a funeral service. To be sure, the
remains of the illustrious deceased are not with us.

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 297

But that matters not. He who considers the subject
will see, that the religious exercises in connection with
a burial are never for the sake of him who has gone,
but solely for those who remain. The departed spirit
stands in need of nothing which men can do for him.
He is entering upon a new and active life in the spiritual
world. He has left his material body behind him. It
is a matter of concern to him no longer. Nor are the
realities of his spiritual existence in any way affected
by the eulogies or prayers which may be uttered in this
world. But if by means of them those who listen are
lifted up to a higher and better state, so that they can
more clearly

" Assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men,"

then surely the services have fulfilled their legitimate
purpose. Hence it makes no difference whether the
corpse is present or not. The religious exercises can
be just as real and useful without it as with it.

It is a doctrine of the New Church that the Lord is
Love itself, and Wisdom itself ; and has created all
things from Divine Love by Divine Wisdom. Because
He is Love itself, therefore has He created human
beings to the end that they may become angels of
heaven, and be conjoined with him in eternal blessed-
ness. The infinite love yearned for that on which
it could be bestowed, and by which it could be
reciprocated ; and man was created. But, inasmuch as
freedom is the indispensable condition of all genuine
reciprocal love and all true happiness, therefore the

298 SERMONS ON THE

Lord made man a free agent ; and His constant effort
with regard to him is to lead him to shun evil and do
good in freedom. Yet he may abuse his freedom, and
act in opposition to the Lord's wishes ; and so obtain
eternal misery instead of blessedness.

If we bear in mind this great principle, that the Di-
vine Providence has for its object a heaven of angels from
the human race, we can understand, in a general way,
all the Lord's dealings with men By means of the
various events which befall them from sources beyond
their control, He designs to bring them into the highest
degree of happiness which they are capable of. "The
Divine Providence looks to eternal things ; and no
otherwise to things temporal, than as far as they agree
with things eternal." The Lord's view of events is not
limited and contracted like ours. Not only does He look
infinitely beyond the present moment, but, in all that
He provides or permits, He has regard to the effect
which is to be produced on every human being. We
may truly say, therefore, that no event can come to pass
except in the precise way which is best calculated to
benefit all who are in any degree affected by it, either
directly or indirectly, now or hereafter. The only con-
dition imposed upon us is, that we should freely make
use of the providential opportunities which, in His
infinite wisdom, our heavenly Father offers. Unless
we do so, we throw away the benefit which forms the
chief part of His merciful designs.

Accordingly, even this barbarous and inhuman work
of the assassin has been divinely permitted for the good
of our beloved country and of the whole human lace, tc

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 299

the end of time. By means of it, each and all of us
may be strengthened, if we will, for the heavenly jour-
ney. As for him who has been struck down, we cannot
doubt that he, in his new abode, is inspired with the
same trust in Providence which was so conspicuous a
trait of his character while he was in the flesh. Nor
can we doubt that he is able to see more plainly, by far,
than he could here, the reasons why Providence leads
mankind through such strange and devious paths.

The Lord, I say, has permitted this shocking deed.
But let us remember that He has not caused it. He is
the cause of no evil whatsoever. But all evil has its
origin in man himself, and is occasioned by the abuse
or perversion of his divinely given freedom. No belief
could be more false, than that the Lord put it into the
heart of the murderer to do this thing. On the con-
trary, His infinite love was extended over him, as it is
over all of us, to lead him to put away the fiendish lust
and thought which impelled him to the fiendish act.
But he would not yield to any divine or heavenly influ-
ence, working within and upon him. He listened to
the voice of hell in preference to that of heaven. And
the Lord, knowing what was best for all concerned,
interposed with none of those events, which we call
accidents, but permitted him to carry out his bloody
purpose. The successful villany is no more wicked in
itself than if it had been unsuccessful. As far as the
spiritual condition of the criminal is affected, it is no
worse than if his plot had failed. The murderer of
the President is no more worthy of condemnation than
the would-be murderer of the Secretary of State. But

300 SERMONS ON THE

as for the results, reaching far beyond the deed itself and
the doer of it, what a wondrous difference ! Who can
measure them ? Who can conceive of (hem ? Who
can adequately estimate them even during the past week,
if we take into account nothing more than what we have
seen in our own immediate community? And who can
doubt that the Lord of love and mercy is directing, and
will direct, them to His own infinite purposes ?

That our heavenly Father provides good, and good
only, for all of His children, must be clear to those who
regard Him as infinitely good and wise. That at the
same time He permits the existence of certain evils, is
evident from the simple fact that they exist ; for how
could this be without His permission ?

It is a somewhat striking fact that the day on which
this terrible deed was perpetrated, is celebrated by the
greater part of the Christian world as the anniversary of
the Lord's crucifixion. The Sabbath following is, in like
manner, supposed to be the anniveisary of His resurrec-
tion. It matters little whether these suppositions are
correct or not. The great truth remains the same, that
the Lord was crucified, and that he rose again. So too,
there is no event, however dark and sorrowful, which has
not, if we but use it rightly, its day of resunection, in
which it re-appears, not in the same form, indeed, but
transfigured ; its aspect changed from d formity into
beauty, from grief into gladness. So are the Lord's
doings made acceptable, as well as marvellous, in our
eyes.

We may not, and doubtless do not, see clearly why
the horrid events of the past week should have taken

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 301

place. But surely we cannot question the goodness and
wisdom of the Lord. We cannot doubt the tender
mercy of that Divine Providence which has so won-
drously preserved us hitherto, and has apparently brought
xis to the end of this unnatural and distracting war.
Our Heavenly Father is not changeable as we are. If
he has been kind in raising up for us a great and good
ruler, He has surely been no less kind in suffering him
to be removed from us.

Certain it is that our President would never have been
taken away, if he had not finished his appointed work.
As for that work, the memory of it will live forever.
A greater work is seldom performed by a single man.
Generations yet unborn will rise up, and call him
blessed.

But, as for what remains, the true spiritual welfare of
the country and of mankind, requires that it should be
done by others. It may be that we need still further
discipline and trial before the full measure of national
prosperity can be allowed to us. Or it may be that he
who was the best leader in time of war is not best fitted
for the new exigencies which are arising. We cannot
tell now, but we shall know hereafter. Our present
duty is to trust. He who has guarded us hitherto will
not fail us in the time to come. In the hollow of His
hand let us rest, doubting not that if we strive to do
our part, He will do His ; and though we now are sorrow-
ful, our sorrow shall be turned into joy.

The primary object in such services as these ought
unquestionably to be, the effort to see and acknowledge
as far as possible the guiding hand of our heavenly
26

302 SERMONS ON THE

Father. But in the case of a public man, whose obse-
quies are performed by an entire nation, there is also the
further object of paying respect to him and his office.
In the present instance, the office has been foully dese-
crated by the impious hand of violence. For this reason,
if for no other, the whole people would rise up as one
man in the fury of their indignation. But now we have
lost a magistrate, who, to the faithful discharge of his
official duties, has added the most endearing of personal
characteristics. His uniform gentleness of heart, his
almost womanly tenderness, his unaffected frankness of
manner, and straight-forward simplicity of speech, have
brought him wonderfully near to the hearts of his coun-
trymen. We all feel to-day as if a father had been
taken away from us.

I shall not attempt any minute analysis of his char-
acter. You all have a clear perception of the man ; for
it was his nature to make no concealment of himself.
Indeed, he was so transparent, that it seems almost as if
we had had a personal acquaintance with him, even
though we had never seen him. His acts and words show
what he was, more plainly than any labored eulogy can
do ; and I have thought that I could not show forth in any
better way his purity of purpose, his disinterested patri-
otism, his genuine reverence for the Lord and the Word,
than by reading to you the inaugural address, which
stands, and will forever stand, as his last words to the
American people : —

" Fellow-Cottntkymen : —

" At this second appearing to take the oath of the
Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 303

address than there was at the first. Then a statement,
somewhat in detail, of a course to he pursued, seemed
very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four
years, during which public declarations have constantly
been called forth, on every point and phase of the great
contest, which still absorbs the attention and engrosses
the energies of the nation, little that is new could be
presented.

"The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly
depends, is as well known to the public as to myself ;
and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encour-
aging to all. With high hope for the future, no
prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion
corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were
anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All
dreaded it, all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural
address Avas being delivered from this place, devoted
altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent
agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without
war ; seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the
effects by negotiation.

" Both parties deprecated war ; but one of them
would make war rather than let the nation survive ;
and the other would accept war rather than let it
perish, — and the Avar came.

" One-eighth of the whole population were colored
slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but
located in the southern part of it. These slaves consti-
tuted a peculiar and poweiful interest. All knew that
this interest was, somehow, the cause of the Avar.
To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was

304 SERMONS ON THE

the object, for which the insurgents would rend the
Union by war, while government claimed no right to do
more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.
Neither party expected the magnitude or the duration
which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that
the cause of the conflict might cease, even before the
conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier
triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding.
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God,
and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem
strange that any man should dare to ask a just God's
assistance in wringing his bread from the sweat of other
men's faces. But let us judge not, that we be not judged.
The prayer of both should not be answered. That of
neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his
own purposes. " Woe unto the world because of offen-
ces ; for it must needs be that offences come, but woe to
that man by whom the offence cometh." If we shall
suppose that American Slavery is one of these offences,
which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but
which, having continued through His appointed time,
He now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North
and South this terrible war as the woe due to those
by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any
departure from those divine attributes which the believ-
ers in a living God always ascribe to Him ?

" Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet,
if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled
by the bondsman's two hunched and fifty years of
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop

DEATn OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 305

of blood drawn with the lash shall he paid by another
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years
ago, so still it must be said, that the judgments of the
Lord are true and righteous altogether.

" With malice towards none, with charity for all, with
firmness in the right, as God gives vis to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up
the nation's wound, to care for him who shall have
borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans,
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a
lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

26*

REV. GEO. PUTNAM.

ADDRESS.

What was mortal of Abraham Lincoln, President of
the United States, is at this hour being borne to the
grave. How are the mighty fallen ! He who but yes-
terday was the top and crown of this vast political
fabric, the peer of the world's foremost men and might-
iest potentates, stricken by the assassin's hand, has
fallen from that great height. His word of power is
hushed; his great heart, embracing a nation in its love,
has ceased to beat. His body is given back to the dust
as it was, and his spirit returneth unto God who gave
it ; and the man who has filled so large a space in the
eye of the world has ceased to be an earthly presence.

The civil and military heads of the nation are burying
their chief, at the capital, with such poor earthly pomp
as befits his station ; and we, who are so far away, yet
as near as they in love and grief, do join in the obse-
quies ; we, and twenty millions more, bowing down our
heads, as one man, in deepest sorrow and awe ; the
whole land in mourning; the drapery of woe festooning
the breadth of the continent ; bell answering to bell,

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310 SERMONS ON TIIE

and gun to gun, from tower and town and hill top, from
sea to sea ; a more than sabbath stillness fallen over all
the cities and the plains and the mountain-sides of our
vast empire.

Verily, this funeral hour, so observed, is an hour
filled with a solemnity, a sublimity, and a pathos, un-
equalled in all the hours that we have lived, or that
our fathers have told us of ; and such an one as might
scarcely come to us again though we should live for
centuries.

It is an hour to be much observed unto the Lord ; and
it was meet that we should come before his presence, and
bow down, and seek his face in submission, in supplica-
tion, and in trust, if so be the hour might not pass away
without leaving its blessing.

Friends, we will not give these flying moments to the
indulgence of our sorrow, nor to vain attempts to express
that sorrow. Deep grief does not readily betake itself
to words : it rather craves the privilege of silence ; and,
if forced to speak, it does but stammer in half-thoughts
and broken utterance. It is the better way for us, the
more manly part, and the more patriotic and more re-
ligious, and a worthier tribute to the illustrious dead,
to hush down the sobs of grief, and rise up into the realm
of more tranquil meditation ; to remember the virtues
and the services of the departed ; to study the lessons
that Providence sets for us in his death ; and gird our-
selves up devoutly, bravely, for the work that is before us.

I will not cumber this day's brief solemnities with any
biographical detail or careful analysis. All is said in
two words : Abraham Lincoln was a good and a great

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 311

man. He must have had faults, and he must have
committed mistakes, for he was a man. But his worst
enemy, — if, indeed, he had any enemy, except his
murderer, and those whose system of war, conceived in
treason, blazing in rebellion, and graced with thousands
of slow murders in the prison-house, has at last inspired
the heart and nerved the arm of the assassin, — except-
ing these, his enemy, if he had one, would not wish to
have his faults recounted, here, as it were, beside his
opening grave. Therefore, it is no matter that the
speaking of these funeral words has fallen to the lot of
one who has loved him with such a filial, grateful, and
reverent love, as never to have been able to see any
faults in him, and who confided in him with such
perfect confidence as never to discover his mistakes.

A good man. I catch no voices of dissent on that
point, and never did, even in those dark days of national
adversity, when the heart of the people seemed to be
falling away from him. A conscientious and upright
man. Just and true in every known act and word of
his life. God-fearing, God-serving ; just and faithful ;
anxious unto prayer to see his duty and to do it. And
a warm-hearted man, disinterested, devoted ; tender-
hearted as a woman, gentle as a child ; loving his
country with his whole heart, and yet room enough in
that heart for kindness to the humblest fellow-creature,
and compassion for every sufferer ; but with no room
for one malignant or vindictive feeling towards his own
or even his country's foes. If he could have had a
moment's consciousness, after the accursed blow was
struck, who will doubt that the sublime words of the

312 SERMONS ON THE

Son of God would have been on his lips and in his
heart, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do."

This conjunction, of so childish a simplicity, so gentle
and unselfish and tender a spirit, with imperial powers
and functions, is so new a thing in the history of
nations, such a strange spectacle to the world, that the
world has not known what to make of it, and has yet
to grow up to an appreciation of the unequalled beauty
and majesty of it.

A good man, and as great as he was good. I know
not that I could tell, if the occasion required it to be
told, just wherein his greatness lay, or where was the
hiding of his power.

The eye of the nation was first turned to him in that
great debate which he conducted in Illinois, some six
years ago, against an adversary who was regarded,
perhaps, as the ablest and most skilful debater then
known in the public councils of the country, — Judge
Douglas. In that debate the great issues of the time
were entered on fully, and to their utmost depths. Mr.
Lincoln bore his part in it with such noble candor and
self-possession, such breadth of views, such clearness
and power of statement, and such masterly logic, that
he became henceforth a marked and representative man,
and could never again become anything less.

Since that time, whoso has been left to speak of
Mr. Lincoln in slighting terms, as an ordinary man
accidentally raised to power, shows himself forgetful, or
but poorly read in the forensic history of the few years
preceding the war.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 313

Many persons make great account of the manners and
personal bearing of eminent men, and not without some
reason, for manners are an index of the mind.

In private circles, in hours of social converse and re-
laxation, there was undoubtedly in the President a
freedom and a homeliness of manner, that showed other
breeding than that of courts and fashionable assemblies.
For he was a genial, humble, kindly man, all undazed
by power and place, utterly devoid of egotism, and
almost of personal consciousness, and unaffectedly re-
garding every man he met as his full equal before God.
Yet, where or when, in any public place or function has
he been found wanting in the stateliness and gravity
that befitted his rank ?

Our own consummate Everett, himself the embodi-
ment of grace and dignity, has declared, that on the
occasion of the funeral solemnities of Gettysburg, where
were met together on the platform, and at the table, our
own most eminent men, and the ambassadors of foreign
courts, there was no man there who bore himself, or was
capable of bearing himself, with more propriety and
true dignity, than the President. And Goldwin Smith,
the candid Englishman, said that not a sovereign in
Europe, however trained from the cradle for state pomps,
and however prompted by statesmen and courtiers, could
have uttered himself more regally than did the plain,
republican magistrate, on that solemn occasion.

Passing from mere manners, to official words, I think

there is no potentate nor minister of state living, or who

has lived in this century, who has spoken so many words

so terse, so strong, so genuine, that history will make

314 SEEMONS ON THE

imperishable, as has Abraham Lincoln. I quote with
pleasure the saying, not of an American partisan, but of a
cold, critical, unsympathizing Briton, respecting the last
inaugural address of the President, that it is " a state
paper which for political weight, moral dignity, and
unaffected solemnity, has had no equal in our time."

Of those intellectual faculties, which have constituted
Mr. Lincoln's greatness in the administration of the
Government, I can speak now only in the most general
terms. It was not genius, inspiration, brilliancy : no
man ever used those words in connection with his name.
There was in him, the shrewdest common sense, a deep
sagacity intuitive and almost infallible, though not
rapid nor flashing. He had a strong grasp of principles,
great patience of investigation, and a sound, sure judg-
ment. These are not the shining powers of the human
mind ; and yet, wherever they are largely possessed, and
happily combined and balanced, they go to constitute
greatness, and produce the effect of greatness in any
sphere of human action. They border close upon the
moral qualities, and it has never yet been metaphysically
shown to what extent high moral qualities combine with
the intellectual ones to strengthen, enlighten, and direct
them, so as to produce greatness of thought, action, and
result. We cannot define how far a living, sleepless
conscience, a sacred, singlehearted regard for truth and
right, a fixed devotion to a noble end and purpose, a
fervent love of country and of humanity, an unswerving
fidelity to trusts, and a devout fear of God ; — we
cannot tell in what proportions these qualities have con-
tributed to set the stamp of greatness on the name and

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LTNCOLN. 315

life of the President. Neither can we so far penetrate
the mystery of spiritual laws as to tell how far, or in
what way, the spirit of the mighty God, Avho holds the
hearts of all men in his hand, and by whom princes
rule, comes to those who piously seek it, and humbly
welcome and trust in it, and enters in by its secret course,
to inspire, assist, and lead the Lord's anointed in the
discharge of their great and solemn function. We only
know that the men who have achieved the greatest things
in any age, have been those who have been ready to say
in such dialect of faith as they had attained to, Not
unto us, O, Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the
glory.

But what need of these inquiries ? Look at what
this man has done. He is great in the greatness of that.
A stupendous work was given him to do, and he has
accomplished it. Called, in God's providence, to a lofty
destiny, he has gloriously fulfilled it. Placed on a pinnacle
high as any earthly height, in the world's full view, he
has won the world's respect and honor. He came to the
capital, four years ago, and found it reeking with treason
in all its departments, threatened on every side by
gathering hordes of rebels, and the very roads leading
to it lined with banded assassins ; he leaves it to his
successor, purified, fortified, impregnable as any seat of
empire on earth ; and not an enemy near it, unless it be
another murderer lurking in its dark places.

Inheriting from his predecessors the seeds and neces-
sities of a civil war of such vast dimensions and such
intense malignity, he has conducted that war and fought
it out through weary years, through seasons of darkness

316 SERMONS ON THE

and discouragement; threatened with reaction among
the loyal, threatened with bankruptcy and every form of
national exhaustion, with foreign intervention, — he has
fought it out to a complete and final victory. The rulers
of Europe told him he was trying to do the impossible :
well, then, he has done the impossible. When he took
his seat of power, he found the nation drifting towards
disintegration and anarchy, division and subdivision, the
abyss out of which only could proceed ruin and eternal
strife ; and he leaves it compacted in unity, and power, and
more imperial than ever before. The ship of state was
.strained in every joint, and crashing in the breakers,
and the great seas going over her, and the skies were
black with tempest, and the crew was in mutiny, and
the wisest knew not what to do, and the bravest blanched
with fear. Then this unknown and untried man comes
forth at the call of the all-wise Providence, which guides
and overrules the choice of men, and, with his eyes raised
to heaven, lays his firm hand on the helm. And behold,
now, the goodly ship rides at her anchors, and rests
beautifully on her shadow; and he, the helmsman, stands
confessed before the world as the pilot that weathered
the storm. Firm and unwavering throughout, whoever
might falter or play false, he has crushed the gigantic
rebellion. Its power of resistance is broken, and on the
verge of annihilation, and the day-star of peace is rising
in the eastern heavens ; and behold, now, it is accompa-
nied, as it never has been before, with two glorious
attendants, — so new, so beautiful, — namely, absolute
and impregnable Nationality, and universal Freedom.
If to have done this is not greatness, what is great-

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 317

ness among men? If he who has done this is not great,
who is great among the living or dead of all ages ?
Shall we apply the title great to -the man who composes
a treatise or a poem, who invents a machine, who ar-gues
a cause, who wins a battle, or takes a city ? Truly we
may sometimes. But so applying the title, do we with-
hold it from the man who saves a nation ? who, by the
guidance of his mind and the strength of his arm, raises
it up from the verge of destruction, leads it through its
night of gloom, its wilderness wanderings, its seas of
blood, and places it at last erect on the supreme heights of
power and peace and glory ? Truly, I think when the
history of this era is written, and our posterity shall read
it, and burn, as they will, with the admiration and the
inspiration it kindles, they will marvel to learn, that, in
the time of these great events, there was in any mind a
blindness and narrowness that could so much as raise a
question of the surpassing greatness of Abraham Lin-
coln.

From his work so accomplished, this man, so great
and good, has gone to his rest, and his great presence
has faded from our sight. He, the saviour of his coun-
try ; he, who has so watched and toiled for us ; our
head, our guardian, our best earthly stay and staff, is
fallen powerless and dumb! Oh, the bitterness of the
grief! Oh, the immeasurable loss ! Would God he had
lived, our yearning hearts cry out, — lived, if it were
only to come forth among his people, that we might
throng his presence, and tell him of our love and rever-
ence, and weave for him our garlands of honor and
thankfulness, and call down heaven's blessings on his
27*

318 SERMONS ON THE

head, and see if we could not do something to Jnake him
as happy as he was good and great. But our prayer is
denied, and we must submit ; and we will, meekly, devout-
ly, God helping us.

And, indeed, apart from the yearnings 'of love and
sorrow, rising to the height of calmer thoughts, can we
not almost see already that God's time is the right time,
and that this death was not untimely ? He lived to see
the work assigned to him substantially accomplished,
and to witness his country's triumph. The measure of
his fame was full. There awaited him, had he lived,
duties less arduous, indeed, but harder for his tender
heart to perform. It needs not a better or a
greater man, but a sterner nature and a more iron
hand than his, to do what yet remains to be done. God
in his mercy has spared him the severe necessities that
will soon press upon his office. He has gone amid the
satisfactions of success and the rejoicings of victory, and
the loud plaudits and affectionate appreciation of his
countrymen ; gone in a moment, and without a pang,
from an earthly joy and glory to an heavenly ; ascended
into the bosom of his God, to whom he had lived so near
in firm obedience and pious trust on earth. Peace be
with him, the peace of God, which passeth all under-
standing.

Though dead, he yet speaketh. Though gone, he is
still here. His memory and influence abide in his coun-
try's heart forever.

The visitation, so solemn and sad, while it dissolves
us in tears, must also arouse us to our responsibilities,
and brace us to our duties.

DEATH OF PKESIDENT LESTCOLN. 319

First, not his gentle and forgiving heart, but the
sacred instinct of eternal justice, implanted in us by
our Maker, demands, in his name and in God's name,
that the whole earth be searched, in every nook and
corner, if need be, for the fiendish murderers, that they
may make to an afflicted nation and an outraged hu-
manity the poor atonement of their accursed lives.
Hell is agape for them ; or, though God have mercy
on them (which we will pray for), man cannot.

And not they only, but the spirit that has bred so
many enormities, that has so long and in so many ways
struck at the nation's life, and has only shown its full devel-
opment in striking down the nation's head, must perish.
The new President — God bless, preserve, and guide him —
is right. That spirit, together with the foul slave-system
that engenders, embodies, and perpetuates it, — that
spirit, which is a murderer from the beginning, and
forever will be while it survives, must be crushed into
the earth. Justice is as divine a principle in God and
in man as mercy. An unfit clemency to guilty indi-
viduals is cruelty to innocent millions and to unborn
generations.

Not from the kindly lips and tender heart of Lincoln
do we derive these stern counsels of duty ; but from his
gaping wound and flowing blood do we take them, and
must heed them.

The awful duties of retribution rest, where they best
may, with the law and the magistrate ; and there we leave
them in strong and faithful hands, I do believe.

And yet there are duties for the humblest citizens.
We must raise higher, and hold firmly up, the standard

320 SERMONS ON THE

of loyalty. The country that has been saved to us, given
back, as it were, from the jaws of destruction, must
now be devotedly loved, and jealously watched for, and
guarded by all its people. No more careless paltering
with treason and half-loyalty, North or South. Our
grand and happy nationality, restored and rehabilitated,
is henceforth our most sacred trust from God ; and the
arm that is lifted against it, be it palsied rather ; and the
false tongue that would profane its majesty by a word
of treason, or of sympathy with treason, be it struck
dumb ere it speak. Whoso does not love his country
is unworthy to live in it. Let the people this day,
bending in tears over the bier of their beloved chief,
let them register in their hearts the solemn decree,
that they will hold their country so dear a possession
and so holy a trust, that they will not permit a drop
of the deadly virus of disloyalty to circulate in its veins ;
and that traitors, and the apologists and supporters of
traitors, must not share its blessings, nor enjoy its
protection, nor so much as breathe its air. Tens of
thousands of our dearest and our noblest have died to
save it, and our great chief has died, because he had
saved it ; and shall not we, who are spared to enjoy it, —
shall we not swear by that sacred blood, his and theirs,
that henceforth we will love it with all our hearts, and
live for it, and watch for it, and devote ourselves and
all that we are and have to it, hold its enemies as our
enemies, and have no friends that are not its friends,
and love none that do not love it ?

Perhaps at this moment, while we speak, they are
lifting up the remains of our noble patriot, deliverer,

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 321

martyr, to bear them from his palace-home to the dark
and narrow house. In such a moment, of so great
solemnity and tenderness, let the sacred fires of patriot-
ism blaze up bright and aloft in millions of hearts ; let
hand clasp with hand in a solemn league and covenant
of loyalty, and all true souls renew their vows of devo-
tion to the country which he loved, and lived for and
died for ; and make that country, in its unity, its
grandeur, and its peace, a fitting monument to his
memory, worthy to record his earthly fame, and accept-
able to the contemplation of his glorified spirit.

REV. GEO. L. CHANEY.

JOHN XIV: 19

Because I live, ye shall live also.

Great lives are never finished ; least finished when
the grave relieves them of their mortal part. Their biog-
rapher only drops his pen at the open sepulchre, because
eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man
conceived the glories that succeed ; or because his search
is baffled as he seeks to trace the growing influence of
these ransomed lives upon the thoughts, the habits, the
principles and actions of an attentive posterity. Modern
scholars have sought to discover a philosophy of history
which should introduce into the reading of the history of
man the precision of natural science, and enable them
to predict the future as they review the past. Race,
climate, physical environment, all external conditions of
the human lot, and each new discovery of human wit,
have been ascertained to affect the history of man ; but
no sufficient philosophy of human history has been
reached, where the most potent factor in the problem
refuses to be classified. The great man is the controlling
power, and he cannot be anticipated. Guizot calls the
appearance of a special great man, at a special time,

28 (325)

32 b SERMONS ON THE

"the secret of Providence." — "The great person, the
great man," says another, " is the miracle of history."

The only prophetic history which deserves the name,
that of the Hebrew prophets, turns with inspired truth
to the great person. " His name shall be called ' won-
derful, counsellor,' " and " the government shall be upon
his shoulder."

The only good and sufficient biography, also, is to be
found in the same sacred volume. For in the successive
books of the New Testament, the life of Jesus Christ is
given with a fulness that recognizes the truth we main-
tain. The biographers of Christ do not leave him in the
grave, as if death were the end of life. To them was
revealed, by the will of God, something of the glory that
succeeds death ; and in the re-appearance, further teach-
ing, and final ascent into the heavens, of their Master,,
they describe his victory over death and the grave, and
immediate entrance into the life eternal in the heavens.

Nor does the record end here ; but, running over into
the Acts of the Apostles, it shows how the life of Christ
on earth was taken up and carried forward by His imme-
diate followers. And, preserving the missionary epistles
of apostles, it further shows how foreign nations felt its
power and followed in its footsteps.

Taking the New Testament as a unit, it is the only
good and sufficient biography ; because it not only pre-
serves the separate details of the thirty years of the life
of Christ on earth, but follows him beyond the grave,
adding that most glorious leaf from the Lamb's Book of
Life, and then traces in the lives of his near posterity
the quickening influence of his Master's spirit and life.

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 327

"Because I live, ye shall live also." If Jesus had
designed to state the universal condition of life, he
could not have chosen fitter words to express his mean-
ing. Till we reach the spring of life, — the self-existent
God, — every living thing implies a living author. And
when we reach that life of the spirit, that higher life,
which has no better definition than "energy of love,
divine or human," they have it not, who will not confess
that it was inspired in their hearts by some kindred life
in another. Often, most often indeed, the awakened
soul can gratefully remember the name, the word, the
act of its awakener, and can recall the occasion of its
waking.

Always some vitalizing word or deed of a living man
or woman has kindled them into life. " Thou art Peter,"
says Christ, " and on this rock I will build my church."
Signifying that men and women animated by the Christian
spirit, speaking and acting out of their original concep-
tion and interpretation of the gospel, were to constitute
the lively stones of his church edifice.

Only life is life-giving ; and the more it gives, the
more it has to give. Therefore I said, " Great lives are
never finished." Therefore it is, that the life of Christ
can never be written in briefer form than in the life of
Christendom. For apostolic zeal and constancy, word of
preacher, prayer of saint, fidelity of martyr, patience in
suffering, comfort in sorrow, strength in temptation,
confidence in death, all the grand and beautiful virtues
that have graced Christian biography, acknowledge in
Jesus, the Christ of God, their inspiration and support.
Because he lived, they have lived also ; and the followers

328 SERMONS ON THE

of Christ will never lose the holy emulation excited by
that one perfect life, till they all "come to the measure
of the stature of the fulness of Christ." If the life of
Christ could be studied in its effects, even if we could
search no farther than to the direct influence of the
New Testament record, doubtless it might be said with
literal truthfulness, of these things which Jesus did, if
they should be written every one, even the world itself
could not contain the books that should be written : with
such fulness has history verified that word of Christ, —
" Because I live, ye shall live also." We find in these
words a profound statement of the law of spiritual
vitalization ; and, although their brightest illustration
is given in the life and influence of Jesus Christ, the
special application of their first statement by him can-
not conceal their large and universal significance. Life
is life-giving ! with only this, the most natural and self-
evident interpretation of the text, we may venture to
take up the burden of this day.

How shall I speak of him, the mention of whose name
a few days ago, made our hearts glad and hopeful ? This
is no time for eulogy. All speech is so feeble in the
presence of the national grief and indignation, that I
would choose to be a silent worshipper with you, while
each should listen to the solemn preaching of the event,
as his own heart might inly interpret it. But since the
occasion, and your general expectation, not unfairly de-
mand speech, I will try so to speak as not to disturb
your hearts' conference with its own bitter grief.
Prayers, spiritual song, and hallowed word of Holy
Writ, must take, for the hour, the ministry of consola-

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 329

tion. In the words that I shall say, I am as one just
bereaved, who can only repeat the virtues of the dead,
and mourn.

He was a faithful husband and a kind father. All his
virtues were homebred, and a domestic sweetness fla-
vored his public acts. He was too much a father to
conduct the pitiless discipline of an army. If a tired
boy fell asleep on guard, he had not the heart to have
him shot. Perhaps he was thinking of his own son,
his Isaac, whom God has since rescued from the sacri-
fice of war, and restored to him, and in whose bright
description of the recent glorious victory, Robert's father
and our country's father took such honest pride, only
the day before he died. Or, perhaps, he thought of his
youngest, the little Benjamin of his home, the boy ever
at his side. I have read nothing more sad, among the
scenes of that saddest chamber death ever entered, than
this. " Little Thaddeus will not look upon his father."
Oh, with what poison did treason's malice inflame the
dull temper of the fatal lead, that it could unman such
a father, and estrange such a child !

He was kind and forgiving, forgiving to a fault (some
have thought and said). But, my friends, if forgiveness
be a fault, methinks saints, not sinners, should make
the discovery. Our good President never knew, never
could know, the wickedness and spite of the enemies of
his country. We never knew them till they placed him
beyond the fatal knowledge which this day we know.
I say the " fatal knowledge;" for unless heaven forefend,
the act which has opened the eyes of this people, till
they stand out with horror, may wake such rage, hot
28*

330 SERMONS ON THE

indignation, and vindictive fury, in the breast of an ex-
citable army and populace, that crime shall fall on crime,
and the triumphant nation shall smear its garments with
the bloody fingers of revenge. Abraham Lincoln never
knew, while he lived with us, the hatred that was in the
rebellious heart. I thank God that his tender heart has
not been wrung and torn as ours has been, by the human
contemplation of enmity's last curse. I thank God that
if such depravity can be known by ransomed souls, the
knowledge has come to him where love has no limitation,
and where forgiveness is no fault.

In life, as every act shows, he was as little conscious
of the spirit that fired the Southern heart, as at the last
he was of the murderer's presence. AVhen he left his
Western home, four years ago, he sowed peaceful
promises, of which his sincere soul was full, all along
the route Eastward ; and his first word in the Capitol
was an anguished appeal in the form of a most tender
remonstrance : " We are not enemies, but friends. We
must not be enemies", he said. He was scarcely better
schooled in enmity when he died. He could not learn it.
He who so easily forgave injuries could not comprehend
a hatred which had no injuries to forgive ; a hatred
which, with Jewish malignity, hated him because he was
a Christian, and clamored for its bond.

He had a working religion, which believed that God
helped those who helped themselves to right ends. He
said, and said devoutly, "God is over all"; but he
added, "We must diligently apply the means." He
had not profited so little by his pioneer life, as to wait
for the lightning to plough his land or the whirlwind to

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LTNCOLN. 331

fell his trees ; but he took the instruments that were at
hand, the plough and the axe, and having well used these,
he trusted to God for the increase. We must do our
best, if we desire the best gift of God. In the practical
application of this religious principle, he was never
remiss and never discouraged.

He saw clearly that there were moral results from
every act, but over these he disclaimed having any
power. Men could not restrain, or much increase them,
he said.

But he was sagacious enough to see that these moral
results would, in process of time, work a change of
policy in the administration of a people's government,
and he doubtless kept equal pace, at least, Avith the
advancing moral sentiment of the people.

The acknowledgment of a controlling Divine Power,
was a frequent and sincere expression with him. He
never forgot it, from the day when he parted from his
Springfield home, and said to his friends there, " Pray
for me," to the closing days of his life, when he ascribed
all glory unto the wonderful providence which had
guided the events of his administration. God was his
Counsellor, but man was his instrument. He could
counsel with God ; he must work with man : and he
showed a practical good sense in the use of his instru-
ments.

Some have blamed him because he seemed to be so
distrustful of committing his government to the policy
which most engaged his moral approbation ; the policy of
emancipation : but events have showed that he only
bided his time. He thought, if God could wait a

332 SERMONS ON THE

hundred years for the destruction of American slavery,
man might wait a hundred days.

The real cause of this delay, however, was his respect
for the Constitution. He was scrupulously true to his
oath to support that. He spoke of himself, in homely
phrase, as of one who had engaged to do a job, and who
felt morally obliged to do it well, according to the terms
of the agreement, viz., the Constitution; and history
will declare that there never was a President who took
move conscientious pains to be faithful to constitutional
government.

All his public documents, and all his published letters
and speeches, bear witness to his fidelity to the Consti-
tution as he understood it ; and surely any construction
less liberal than he put upon it, and any milder exercise
of its war powers, would have exposed that instrument
to the ridicule of the world, and flung us into the ancient
chaos of disunited States. He suffered for long the moral
disapprobation of men whom he profoundly revered,
because of his delay in assuming the power conferred by
war, to abolish human slavery; and when the proclama-
tion of emancipation came, his impressive benediction
commends it not simply as an act of justice, but of wise
policy and constitutional validity :

" Upon this, sincerely believed to be an act of justice,
warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I
invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the
gracious favor of Almighty God."

He was honest from the first, and lived so, four years,
in Washington. His fairness in dealing showed itself in
repeated offers of compensated emancipation to the Slave

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 333

States ; in temperate delays and profitable warnings ; in
a hundred days of grace, before the consummate word
was spoken that made us free.

A winning frankness made it impossible to double-
deal with him. He made short work with all super
refinements, curious subtleties, and specious insincerities.
His kindly nature made him value the approbation of
his people. To-day, when we cannot suffer a word to
his discredit, we almost resent his own words, when we
read, in a letter he once wrote to Mr Conkling, "But
many people find fault with me." We feel ashamed
that we ever doubted him, when we read further and
hear him saying : " I certainly wish that all men should
be free, while you, I suppose, do not." And then he
proceeds to state, with that judicial clearness so charac-
teristic of his mind, the emancipation policy.

The same regard for fair-dealing which led him to
offer, again and again, compensated emancipation to the
slave-master, made him determined to protect the men
whom he had freed. " To abandon them now," he says,
" would not only be to relinquish a lever of power, but
would also be a cruel and astounding breach of faith."

He was a constant and self-sacrificing friend, and never
allowed personal ambition to pervert justice. Early in
the war, he showed a generous readiness to take upon
himself the responsibility of unpopular acts. He laid
aside the traditional dignities of his office, and mounted
the rostrum, that he might defend the character and dis-
position of influential servants of the government. It is
the singular truth that in the death of him we mourn,
his enemies are even more bereaved than his friends.
His cool assassin was a lunatic suicide.

334 SERMONS ON THE

But why prolong the mention of virtues that do but
prolong our grief? These memories only deepen our
sense of a loss already, at times, beyond our trustful
submission.

Let me leave with you these words of sober prophecy
and faithful advice. I need not tell you the name of
their author :

" Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope
it will come soon, and come to stay, and so come as to
be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have
been proved, that, among freemen, there can be no suc-
cessful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they
who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and
pay the cost. Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a
speedy, final triumph. Let us be quite sober ; let us
diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just
God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful
r— At "

REV. A. L. STONE,

LAMENTATIONS V: 15, 16.

The Jct of our heart is ceased ; our Dance is turned
into Mourning.
The Crown is fallen from our Head.

When, three days ago, the morning of the day
appointed for fasting, humiliation, and prayer, rose
upon a people jubilant with the joy of victory, many
felt that both the designation of the day and the ac-
customed manner of its observance should be changed ;
that, instead of fasting, there should be feasting, in-
stead of humiliation and supplication, thanksgiving and
praise.

But some of us remembered, and we called it to mind,
that the chief intent of the day, as our fathers kept it,
was prospective. It did not look backward with peni-
tential review, so much as it looked forward with fore-
casting, deprecation to possible evils. The day was
appointed in the spring season, when the great venture
of the harvest was at hazard, and all the uncertainties
of elemental blight and blessing hung poised in the
scales of Providence. If there were confession, for-
saking of sin, — as was always true, — it was as a

29 (337)

Sob SERMONS ON THE

preparation of heart for availing prayer, that " the
early and the latter rain " might fall, each in its time ;
the hand of the reaper bind and gather its sheaves
with joy, and the autumn granaries be full. Then
should follow the commemorative festival, looking to
the past, and celebrating the throned goodness that had
provided abundance for the wants of man and beast.
It was this ideal of the day recently observed, that held
so many Christian pulpits and Christian people so closely
to its first design.

We ought to have felt, more deeply than we did, that
the future might bring up, into that bright morning sky,
dark clouds big with storm and tempest, and have
stretched our hands up with a mightier reach of suppli-
cation toward the sovereign hand holding the balances
weighted with coming events.

The thought was on our hearts and on our lips that
there might be perils brooding for our country, shadows
gathering over the path of its future. But who could
have looked forward to so dark a shadow as this which
has fallen ! who could have painted this sable cloud on
that smiling sky !

There was talk, with some, of reversing our associa-
tions with this month of the Spring, and our religious
observances wedded to its annual return, and making it
henceforth our month of most tuneful rejoicing, — the
coronal of the year. But not now ! We cannot change
thee, oh, weeping April ! oh, month of tears ! Pour
down all thy warm showers : from our eyes the rain falls
faster yet ! Evermore, from henceforth, at thy return,
thou and the sorrowing nation shall weep together.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 339

How sudden the changes of the April sky, — sun-
shine ! shower ! And beneath, on our faces and in our
hearts, how faithfully copied ! What glad days they
were that followed those two memorable sabbaths,
freighted with such a gospel of victory and peace !
What a deep and tender joy rested upon all our homes
and temples ! Richmond was taken. The sword of
Lee Avas broken. Loyal and honest hands were on their
way to run up the old flag above the battered and ruined
walls of Sumter. Every eye was sunny with gratulant
greetings to every other. How sudden the darkness !
Night comes in nature with twilight herald running
before. Our night came without precursor, — " in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye," as though noon
and midnight had met.

There were beds the night before last, I suppose, rest-
less with dreams ; but with all the sleepers there was no
dream so black as that awful fact that went pulsing and
tolling through the night, and lies now like an incubus
which memory cannot chase away, upon the shuddering
national heart.

We have lost great and good men before. They have
been taken from the high places of honor and of trust
with their robes of office on. They have been taken
from the scenes of retirement whither a nation's homage
followed them, bearing in its offerings before their feet.
Washington died leaving that one peerless title behind
him, — "The Father of his Country." Harrison and
Taylor died, sinking wearily down from that chair toward
whose great vacancy our dim eyes look to-day. Our
two great Massachusetts statesmen and orators passed

340 SERMONS ON THE

away leaving us to feel that the world was less rich and
grand since they were gone. But these were all led
gently from our presence, by a messenger hand, whose
power and whose right none of us could question. The
Divine Will, by itself, and alone, made up and executed
the summons.

But our dear President was snatched from us by the
hand of violence. This was the bitter element in the
cup. He might have lived. He was not sick. He was
not old. " His eye was not dim, nor his natural force
abated." All wantonly and wickedly his precious blood
was shed ; unchilled by age, untainted with disease.
He had reached no natural bound of life. It was not a
treasure expended, but stolen by forceful robbery. It is
not simply bereavement, — but bereavement by such
awful fraud, that tries us most sorely.

And yet none the less — but how it strains upon our
submission — none the less is it the solemn, sovereign
providence of the reigning God. Truly " clouds and
darkness are round about him." In this visit to us "He
maketh darkness his pavilion," and our hand cannot
draw back the heavy folds. He is trying, by a hard test,
our faith, our confidence, our resignation. Oh that our
struggling lips could say clearly, if not calmly, "It is
the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good." "We
must say that, before we can have any comfort, before
our prayers can find acceptance, and before the divine
hand will take from our suppliant hand the loose-lying
reins of state. God help us to say out of the depths of
this great grief, without a doubt, without any reserve,
with our yearning affections still clinging around that

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 841

pale, dead form, lying in the chamber of the White
House, " Thy will be done !"

How dear he was to the people ! That thought
comes first after the loss. He was of them. He was
not lifted above them, either in pride of place, or
pride of intellect, or the kingly style of his greatness.
He walked on our levels still. All his simple, plain,
homely talk, kept him near us. He spoke our vernacu-
lar, the language of the fireside and common life,
and not the dialect of courts He did not leave us, and
wrap himself in official stateliness, when he went up
the hill of the capitol. His kindly face and voice, his
cheerful, humorous, fireside Englisb, his form and atti-
tudes, and all his personal habits, made him seem of
kin to each of us. A familiar, friendly, neighborly air
hung about him everywhere. He put on nothing. He
was always his own, true, hearty, republican self. The
people loved him. That thin, swarthy face, that tall,
angular form, drew after them, more than all beauty and
grandeur in the land, the blessings of their hearts. And
he loved them. He was thoughtful for the comfort of
the aged, the poor, the hearts which war had made deso-
late. The humblest could go to him, finding an open
door and an open heart. It seems to me that we have
never held any other President so tenderly in our affec-
tions. And one reason is, we have never found any
other so accessible to our thoughts and sympathies, and
never one so much of our own mould and substance.

How we confided in him! He was a man to build
trust upon. His honesty was a pillared rock. The
pleasant air, with which, against whatever importunity,
29*

342 SERMONS ON THE

he kept his purposes, covered and mantled the sternest
conscientiousness. The careless step with which he
walked toward his objects in the country's welfare,
neither wealth nor favor could make to swerve. All was
simple, easy, and natural, but firm-fibred as Dak, true
as steel. The most faithful discharge of his great duty, —
the highest good of the nation, — to this fixed, unrevolving
star his soul was steady as the needle to the pole. He had
a sharp insight that cut through all the rind of sophis-
tries to the core of difficult questions, leaving such light
on the stroke that other minds could follow. He was
a man of parables, and translated the dark and vexed
problems of political science into pleasant similitudes,
transparent to the dullest eye. Where a diplomatic
answer would have been dignified obscurity, he told a
story through which flashed the honest light of clear
intelligence. He was in this way a wonderful teacher
of the nation. His brief, pithy, humorous narratives
have made crooked things straight, through a thousand
tortuous walks of State policy. This quaint, ever-ready
humor was the soft cushion upon which the great burdens
of his public cares impinged, covering and shielding his
nerves from laceration. It saved him half the wear and
tear of his official work. It kept his friends, and con-
ciliated those who differed from him. He could convince
with a smile, refute with a jest, turn the flank of heavy
reasoning with this agile lightness of wit and conquer
kind feeling, if not persuasion, — generally both.
! His goodness was his greatness. His honest heart
helped his straight-forward mind. He saw truth and
duty more clearly by this inward illumination. His

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 343

reach of genuine desire carried out his reach of intellect,
and became genius. He was more sagacious than his
advisers, partly because he was more single-hearted. He
sought so earnestly the best means to the noblest end, that
he was sure of an intellectual triumph in their discovery.
He kept the moral sky clear, and it reflected light upon
the mental. A pure patriot, who walked with honor,
faith, and truth, though Avalkingamid the defilements and
corruptions of political life, and so kept his garments
unstained. But this is no time, in the freshness of our
affliction, for bis eidogy. It is too soon to write that.
We must wait till the clouds have risen from all the
paths he trod, — till the smoke of conflict and the haze
of prejudice are swept away by the sun-bright air of our
newly-risen day. By and by the future will lead us up
to calm heights that will give us perfect vision over all
these fluctuating levels. We are too near Abraham
Lincoln yet, fully to survey and respect his great nature
and his great work. Not till the wave on whose crest
he rode has receded with him a little, shall we be able to
discover on the back-ground of these eventful times the
true proportions of his greatness. Every coming clay
will add to his fame ; and coming generations will testify
that no purer, no nobler, no more fruitful life has been
given to our nation and American history.

" We trusted it had been he," whom God had appointed
to lead us through both the Bed Sea and the desert
beyond, to the Canaan of our future. But the dastard
hand of treason struck, — struck as cowards always
strike, from behind, — struck, with the confession of
weakness and desperate inferiority which the assassin

344 SERMONS ON THE

and his cause always make in the very act that gluts
their hate, and the good, the great, the gentle, the kind,
the large-hearted, the beloved President is no more !
Whatever else may be dark about this mystery of crime,
we cannot mistake the spirit that steeped itself in that
sacred blood. It is the same spirit that has been deaf
for generations to the groans and sighs of the bondman ;
the same that struck with parricidal hand at the breast
of the country's life ; the same that opened the murder-
ous thunders of war in Charleston harbor, and has kept
them resonant over the land through four wasteful, tragic
years ; the same that sent hired incendiaries to fire the
mansions in our Northern cities, where women and babes
as well as men slept in unsuspecting security ; the same that
laid in wait for the President elect, with murderous intent,
when he first left his Western home for the Capitol ; the
same that advertised for bids upon his head, through the
consenting press of the South ; the same that administered
keepers' discipline in Libby Pi ison and Castle Thunder, for
a step or gesture amiss, with bullet and bayonet ; that
made grim Famine jailer at Belle Isle and Andersonville,
over tens of thousands, to whom death only brought
release. This black, consummate crime is only the ripe
fruit of that system of barbarism which has struck its
roots so deep, and had such stalwart growth in this conti-
nent. That barbarism has cheapened human life in hearts
where it has had its hour ; made shedding of blood like
the pouring out of water ; the cries of famishing men as
whisperings of the idle wind ; the striking down of
senatorial dignity in its own place of privilege and
unsuspecting safety, a deed of chivalrous gallantry ; and

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 345

now the cold-blooded murder of one who has led in the
great marches of liberty to a whole race, and is hailed
as deliverer and saviour by four millions of souls whose
fetters have fallen at his word, and has disappointed thus
the scheme to build a kingdom of darkness and of iron
upon the necks of those millions, an act of fruitless though
sweet revenge. It has delivered many a blow before,
that has wrung and pierced the individual heart ; but it
has found here at last its opportunity, Nero-like, to
gather in one the hearts and hopes of all loyal people*,
and pierce them through with a single thrust. Will any
one say that I go too far in attributing this stroke of a
single hand to the whole system which it so fitly repre-
sents? The evidence found in the papers of the
assassin, the time at first arranged for the execution of
the plot, the hesitation of an accomplice at that time,
until wokd should come from Richmond, and the
mysterious threats and prophecies of Richmond papers of
that date, of some great shock to the Union, and the world
even, then just impending, which would be the deliver-
ance of the confederacy, all go to show that the secret of
this conspiracy, and its dark purpose, were in the hearts of
the rebel chiefs in the rebel capital.

But what has it gained for itself by such triumphant
guilt? Any reversal of its own infamy; a more clement
judgment in history ; the blossoming of fresh hope for
its own dark designs ; a change of sentiment and will
with the loyal people ; the blotting out of the great
victories of the fortnight past ; aught but a crimson hand
whose stain strikes all through the soul, and the curse
of earth and heaven ? It has bought its revenge dear.

346 SERMONS ON THE

And what, we may ask, is the extent of this revenge ?
or, rather, in what aspects may we view it, that shall help
us bear our loss, and show us the divine hand mingling
in it?

That deadly aim took the life of Abraham Lincoln.
But it could not touch his past. That is forever safe.
It could not blot out one of those pregnant years through
which his hand was on the helm of the ship of state, as
she drove reeling over the great waves of the storm. It
could not make good the threat, that he should never live
to take his seat in the Presidential chair. It could not
bereave the country of one counsel of -wisdom, one firm
resolve upon which she has leaned so steadily in her
darkest hours. It could not put out the light of that shin-
ing example of truthfulness and dutifulness which has
been to us all, in this night of gloom, a star of cheer and
of guidance. It could not undo the policy which has
gathered and marshalled invincible armies, and conquered
peace by the sword, without one compromise of right-
ful, unfettered authority. It could not silence that voice
that spoke out on the most illustrious New Year's morn-
ing of all our history, and said to Four Millions of
slaves, " Be Feee ! " — and the winds of heaven bore it
out, " Be Free ! " — and the sea repeated it, on all our
shores, " Be Free !" — and the eagle of liberty, looking
down on his own broad continent, screamed it, " Be
Free !" — and the bending heavens with saluting angels
sent it back to all our dusky homes, " Be Free !" — and
the echo rose in unnumbered voices of lonely lips, toned
with wondrous gratitude, "Free, Free, Free!" That
word has been spoken. In that word the murdered

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 347

President " though dead still speaketh." That voice can
never be silenced, though those pale lips shall never part
again. The work that has been done, and so well done,
by this faithful worker, cannot be undone. No power
beneath the sun can roll back this nation to where
she stood four years ago. Those grand acts of the
drama that have moved across the stage will never
retrace their steps. This final act of victory and
certainty cannot be exchanged for that first act of
surprise, confusion and fear. Our risen morning
cannot sink down behind the orient, and hide again
in the darkness of the past. The night of doubt
and defeat, the night of slavery, the night of defiant
rebellion, those deep shadows of the past, have fled ; and
the new day no man can sweep from the brightening fir-
mament. All this has been gained, for us and humanity,
under that leadership whose stricken hand has dropped
the sceptre now. The sceptre has fallen, but this work
remains. The past is secure. No murderer's hand has
power to blot it.

In our hearts, too, our slain leader still lives. He lives
more vitally than ever. Many hearts that were cool to
him will have opened now, and taken him in. All
prejudice will forgive him and accept him. He is no
more an object of criticism ; he is beyond the reach of
hate. Hate itself will die out, and in its place will
come a concession of his many virtues and peerless ex-
cellences. He is dead. All pens that write of him
will write forbearingly, if not tenderly and admiringly.
And those of us who loved and honored him before will
take his name and image into some more interior cham-

348 SERMONS ON THE

ber of our hearts, within some more sacred shrine, and
guard them there. It was not Abraham Lincoln, it was
our cause, the cause of liberty, the cause of humanity,
the cause of government, the cause of the Union, that
was doomed to the death by that felon hand. The vic-
tim stood on that perilous height, as the representative
of this whole great scheme of human progress. He is
its martyr. He died for that. He was slain because of
his faithfulness to that scheme. Our hands led him up,
once and again, to that eminence, and set him there as a
target for the deadly malice of the conspirators. He
fell because we laid upon him such trust, and because he
discharged it all too well. We can but love him the
more for this. Our noble, murdered witness, with his
good confession, his home and his throne, are henceforth
in our heart of hearts. The assassin's steel, the deadly
aim, cannot reach him here. We will teach our posterity
to honor him. Our children, and our children's children
shall hear us speak his name as our fathers spoke to us
the name of Washington, and shall grow up revering
and guarding the hallowed memory of this second Father
of his country ; whom History will write, also, the Father
of a race.

His future, too, is safe. There is no question now, in
any mind, whether any eclipse can come upon his fame.
Would he have guided the vessel as wisely, through the
intricate channels of reconstruction, as over the tempes-
tuous sea of civil strife ? Could he have gained such
wide assent and cheerful support to his measures, in the
new exigencies of ruling, as in those through which he
has safely brought us ? Might not some, who have been

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 349

his friends, have turned against him possibly, as the new
questions of the hour, and of coming hours, came into
sharp debate ? Already there were fears that he would
not prove stern enough for the stern work of retributive
justice, and that his great, kind heart, rather than his
bond to law, and to the destinies of the future, would
have gviided him in his treatment of the chiefs of the
rebellion. But all fears, all questions, all doubts looking
toward any qualification of his well-earned renown, are
vanished now. He can show no weakness in the future,
to reflect upon his strength in the past, commit no folly
to reproach his old sagacity, make no blunder that shall
leave him shorn of influence, and mingle large qualifica-
tion with the praise of history. He is safe from all these
possibilities of errors, frailties, and failures. History
must take his portrait as he is, standing at the very
highest eminence of a just and stainless life. Not one
lam-el which he has won, and which he wears, is ever,
by any reversal of coming days, to be stolen from his
wealth of power.

He Avas permitted, too, to see the great triumph
toward which his hopes looked and his counsels helped.
Thank God for that. He knew the rebellion doomed,
the war ended, and the nation saved. That one supreme
moment when his feet trod the streets of the conquered
rebel capital paid him for all. He did not die like the
old prophets " without the sight." He gazed with
mortal eyes xipon the glorious consummation, for which,
with such grandeur of constancy and diligence, through
four years whose weight would have crushed a weaker
man, and would have crushed him but that he leaned on

350 SERMONS ON THE

Heaven, he had been toiling. If the assassin had
struck before the rebel banner fell at Richmond, and the
sword of Lee was yielded to the hand of Grant, if the
sun of the President had gone down before the sun of
our rescued nationality had fairly risen, that would have
been a darker and more trying providence. But that
sun was up. Those patriot eyes saw its morning radi-
ance, and reflected it back". He might almost have
said, like aged Simeon, perhaps he did so say in the
silence of some secret and thankful prayer, " Lord, now
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes
have seen thy salvation ! "

It will not be too bold to say, that his work was done
when it paused; for God, who gives each man his task,
so judged and so appointed. His mission was accom-
plished. That for which God raised him up he had
performed. All that was committed to him to do he
finished, and finished well. That which comes after is
assigned to other heads. God is not limited in the
number or in the variety of his agents. Nothing is
put in peril now by this falling of a trusted leader
which God cannot as well provide for, and make even
more victoriously secure.

Least of all are we to fear, that the great cause of
progress in this land must needs be turned back, or even
halt. That cause may be served and forwarded by men ;
but it is not dependent upon their living or dying. It is
not invested in any vulnerable, human life. It is not
something material Avhich bludgeon or steel may strike
to the earth. Its citadel is not within frail human flesh,
or within the truest and- noblest human heart. It is a

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 351

kingdom of truth, — a life of ideas, invisible, invul-
nerable, — on all the air, — in the faith and testimony
of millions of confessors, — in God's imperishable word,
— linked with his invincible providence, — in living
seed of thoughts and principles which righteous blood
shed by the hand of violence only quickens to a more
instant germination, and ripens to an earlier and broader
harvest. That cause is God's cause. It is hid in his
heart. It is carried on his eternal purpose. It is too
high and safe for human desperation to strike.

Let none of us in his great grief despair or despond
over his country. Recall to-day that word which has
become in these stern times our national motto, " In
God we trust ! " He did not lead Israel through the
Red Sea to forsake them in the wilderness. He will
not forsake us on the shore from which we have looked
down on our foes overwhelmed and broken. He has led
us hitherto. He can lead us on. His counsels have not
changed. His power is not baffled. He can appoint us
a leader. Moses was not permitted to go over Jordan ;
but there arose a new captain of the Lord's host, and
the sword of Joshua instead of the rod of Moses waved
in the van of advance. David was not permitted to
build a temple for the Lord his God, because he had
been a man of war, and had shed much blood ; but he
prepared the way, accumulated the means, conquered
the peace, and Solomon reared the magnificent, sacred
pile. Through our tears let us look up and confide in
that Supreme Leader.

He has mingled mercy even with this great tragedy.
Part of the bloody conspiracy was foiled. The Secretary

352 SERMONS ON THE

of State, and those smitten in his defence, we may hope
will survive. The arm that conquered in the field,
doomed in the foul plot with those who were stricken, —
the arm of our hero, Grant, is nerved still with life and
strength. God keep it so nerved. God shield the head
of Grant. How wide the murderous scheme, and how
many names were written on the assassins' roll, none of
us can tell, hut every great and precious life we can
commend to his vigilant keeping who has numbered
the hairs of our head, and without whom not a sparrow
falls to the ground.

What if the new unexpected responsibility settling
upon the legal successor of the slain President should
fill him with another heart, call him up to the height of a
great consecration, gird him with noble and faithful
purposes, so that the memory of one hour of shame
shall be remembered no more against him, in the splendor
of a long and just renown? That issue is more than
possible. This, too, may be given as the answer of
Christian intercession.

And oh, we have that stricken household to bathe with
a nation's sympathy; to beseech God's tenderest con-
solations for them; to lift them, and lay them for
strength and comfort on the heart of Jesus.

Of what infinite worth to them now, and to us also,
those words of tender confession wdiich came a few
months age from the President's lips: "Yes, now I can
say that I do from my heart love the Lord Jesus Christ."

We feel, many of us, that we could have wished, for
him whom we mourn, a different scene for the last hour
of his health and consciousness on earth, that he could

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 353

have met the fatal missive on some stage of official duty,
or in the retirement of home, or in the circle of religious
worship, rather than within those festal walls. Yes, it
would have been better.

But they were scarcely festal walls to him. They
were a sort of refuge often, for one who had no retire-
ment of home, from the incessant calls and wearying
importunities of aspirants for place and office.

And it has seemed to be rather one of the penalties
than pleasures of political rank and illustrious position,
that they must yield themselves to the popular welcomes
and fellowship in such festive gatherings. And the plea
that prevailed with the President to visit the theatre on
this particular night was that of his own kind heart,
unwilling, in the necessary absence of their idolized
general, that the waiting enthusiasm of the people should
be altogether denied an object for its expression; his
last thought not for himself, but for the gratification of
those whom he loved and served.

And so he has passed from the midst of us. Our joy-
bells have changed their merry peals for solemn tolling.
Our festive banners droop at half-mast. Our purposed
jubilant processions must become funeral marches to
this new grave. " The joy of our hearts is ceased.
Our dance is turned into mourning. The crown is
fallen from our head."

We touch, in this event, one of the great pivotal
points in our history and destiny, on which turn issues
more momentous than we can now discern. But our
future is with God, and not at the mercy of human
scheming and human crime.
30*

354 SERMONS ON THE

We shall not have much time for tears even over so
great a sorrow. Our work is stern and pressing. One
thing is beyond contradiction. Yielding rebellion has
lost its most lenient judge, — returning rebels their best
friend. His successor has always entertained towards
these parricides a sharper and more incisive purpose.
They will meet in him a face set like a flint, a hand of
iron. They have not gained much by the exchange.

We shall none of us be any the more inclined to spare
the last remaining weakness of the old system, from this
new exhibition of its fell spirit, or to apologize for that
temper in the midst of us that can make this day of
broken-hearted mourning a day of glad tidings to itself.
It is not wise just now for such minds to speak out their
brutal gladness. Our hearts are too sore to bear it.
They had better hide it, if they feel it, so deep that
neither by look nor lip shall it get expression. We
shall not be very patient with it. The law officers have
found out that there is such a crime as being accessories
to murder after the fact, and the spirit of Andrew John-
son is the downright kindred spirit of the Andrew Jack-
son of other days, and treason, North and South, will have
a short shrift and a sharp doom. Perhaps we needed,
all of us, to see more clearly the wickedness against
which we have had to contend, and to be girded anew
for its utter extermination. Let us crush it quickly, and
forever.

And so, bereft of this one helper in whom we have
felt strong, let us turn to God with a new spirit of
dep?ndence on his Almighty arm, and make our tears of

DEATH OF PEESIDENT LINCOLN. 355

mourning the waters of a new baptismal consecration to
the service of our country and humanity, the supremacy
of law, and the safety, honor, and perpetuity of this
Union, for which we have paid so great a price.

REV. J. D. FULTON.

DEUTERONOMY XXXIV: 7.

"His eye was not dim, nor his natural Force abated.'

An inscrutable providence crowds this and other
sanctuaries to-day. A nation, redeemed by the blood
and toil of her bravest and best, mourns the loss of a
Chief Magistrate, who was the embodiment of a people's
hope, and the object round which the affections gathered
of every lover of liberty in the world. Abraham Lincoln
was sincerely loved. That "peasant proprietor," and
"village lawyer," whom, by some divine inspiration or
providence, the republican party of 1860 selected to be
their standard bearer ; whose election was regarded as
a calamity by many of his supporters ; and as a justifiable
cause for the most monstrous rebellion upon which the
sun ever shone, grew to be the peer of Washington, and
climbed to the highest peak of earthly distinction.

It was a great shock when half the nation attempted
to make the dream of secession a real fact, and when
the guns of Sumter sounded the call to arms ; but it was
trivial when contrasted with the emotions experienced
as the tidings reached us that Abraham Lincoln had

(359)

360 SERMONS ON THE

been assassinated. We were glad when the armies of
the rebellion were beaten ; when Richmond fell ; when
Lee capitulated ; but we would rather have had
Washington environed with the enemy and have
had Lincoln alive, than to have had the armies defeated
and Lincoln dead. This is a new crime. We are not used
to the bloody hand in that shape. We have felt that
" slavery was the sum of all villanies," and that men
who could starve our brothers amidst abundance ; who
could suffer them to freeze, and go unsheltered amid
primeval forests, were capable of any act of cruelty and
injustice ; but we had forgotten that sin is blinding,
and that God often permits the wrath of man to work
out his own destruction ; and so we had somehow
fancied that rebels had hearts and brains as other
men ; and that they would discover, what we have
felt all the way, that our chief magistrate was a wall
between the wrath of an outraged people and the veriest
criminals of history.

They did not perceive the truth, and so they conspired
against the life of their best, if not of then- only powerful
friend. There is no other like him. Death has frozen
and hardened that loving face, and embalms it in the
memories of mankind as a legacy of the past. That
heart which felt its need of divine support when the
nation's sky was o'erclouded, and the air was full of
rumors and revolt; which nearly broke as the eye gazed
upon the lifeless form of his idolized child; and which
surrendered itself to Jesus as the boom of the cannon at
Gettysburg assured us that the nation was in its Geth-
semane struggle ; which wrought, by the throes of an

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 361

indescribable anguish, Emancipation for this nation ;
which was so full of gentleness and love, and so longed
for peace, that already it was nearing the verge of
injustice, in its search for its ways of being merciful, is
stilled in death.

" Yet a few days and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more.
Thou shalt lie down

"With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings,

The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good,

All in one mighty sepulchre."

Like Moses, he has died, not because of disease, nor of
advanced age ; his eye was not dim, nor was his natural
force abated. He died because his work was done. He
had passed through battle, sorrow, and war ; had climbed
the heights of Pisgah, and had gained a view of the
Canaan of peace lying in the distance ; and when the
Lord had showed him all the land, and had assured him
of the promise that the sons of freedom should possess
it, by his providence he declared, " Thou shalt not go
over thither."

The purpose which God had to accomplish through
his instrumentality had beeen fulfilled ; and, as there are
dividing lines in time, drawn by God, over which men
never pass, it becomes us to bow in meek submission,
here as elsewhere, and to hear the words, " Be still,
and know that I am God."

Four years ago we remembered him as he abode in
hope. Then he found himself the object of Southern
abuse so fierce and so foul, that, in any man less passion-
less, it would long ago have stirred up an implacable
31

362 SERMONS ON THE

hostility. Mocked at for his official awkwardness, and
denounced for his steadfast policy ; beset by fanatics of
principle on one side, who disregarded constitutional
obligations, and by fanatics of caste on the other, who
were not only deaf to the claims of justice, but would
hear of no policy large enough for a revolutionary emer-
gency ; now tried by a long series of disasters which
distressed and depressed the nation, and now by a
series of successes that would have puffed up a smaller
mind, he has preserved his balance, and walked on in
the path of duty ; never in advance of public opinion,
and never far behind it ; going more as a passenger
on the ship of state, believing that the hand of God was
on the helm, than as a pilot and commander, capable of
mapping out new and untried paths ; never trying to
control events, but frankly confessing " that events have
controlled me ; " never attempting to compliment his
own sagacity, but gladly admitting that to God be-
longs all the praise : like our Capitol, which has
been pushed on towards completion amidst troublous
times, though it lacks here a cornice and there a
column, yet the statue of Liberty crowns its summit,
and looks with glorious pride toward the east ; so
we remember that though his character was incomplete,
yet like the Capitol, its main portions stood out
in grand and type-like outline, crowned with the laurel
wreath of victory, and bearing on its ample frontlet,
the emblazoned word of Liberty. We remember that
a little more than a month before he died, he stood
forth on the day of his second inauguration, with a mes-
sage so statesman-like, so imbued with Christian hope

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 363

and charity, that even English critics declare that they
can detect no longer the rude and illiterate mould of the
village lawyer's thought, but find it replaced by a grasp
of principle, and dignity of manner, and a solemnity of
purpose, which would have been unworthy of none of
the remarkable statesmen of the past : while his gentle-
ness and generosity deserve to remain forever the wonder
and admiration of mankind.

Death has done its work ! That soul no longer lights
up that tall, frail body. The window is darkened. The
vital force is withdrawn. The heart ceases its beating.
The tabernacle is emptied of its inhabitant and goes to
decay. Rejoice that, though the assassin's bullet has
wrought this, it could not accomplish its fell purpose.
For though the earthly house of this tabernacle was
destroyed, he had a building of God, a house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens. He obeyed his
Master's injunction and literally knew no fear of men,
who could destroy the body, but after that have no more
that they can do; but having feared Him who can cast
both soul and body into hell, he had learned to put away
trouble ; having believed in God, and having believed,
also, in Christ. It is ours to rejoice. We had elected
him to the highest of earthly positions, and made him an
inhabitant of that house which is the goal of millions.
Christ has lifted him higher, and made him a tenant
of a mansion prepared for him in the heavens. Hence
the loved wife, and those children, one of whom was
just standing upon the verge of manhood, and the
other " Tad." whom he loved so well, — a boy of hope
and promise, — can exclaim, now that the soul has

364 SERMONS ON THE

winged its way upward, " Our loved one is with God."
With the Christian the separation of the soid from the
body is but the throwing aside the curtains of time, and
crossing the threshold of a blissful eternity. His
eternal Sabbath has begun. Sin, which fettered his
soul here, cannot touch him there. He has escaped,
like the eagle to the mountains ; the snare of the
fowler is broken. He has kept Christ's command-
ments, and abides in Christ's love. He has fought the
good fight, and finished the course, and kept the faith ;
and henceforth there remains for him a crown of right-
eousness. Let us rejoice that over his remains the light
of a Christian's hope sheds its radiance. In spiritual
death there is something frightful to contemplate. We
all understand the meaning of the word "death" as
applied to the body ; none of us can comprehend the
meaning of the term "death" as applied to the soul.
We have seen the footprints of the destroyer, now in
the wasted form, and sunken cheek and eye of those we
have loved. We have seen the child of tender years
lying, like a withered flower, in the lap of maternal
tenderness ; we have gazed upon the robust frame,
plump cheek, and closed eye, over which the sporting
ringlet played, and have cried, " He is not dead, but
sleepeth ; " we have seen death in horrid shapes on the
battle-field, where giant men have fallen in the strife ;
we have walked beneath the shadows of the pestilence,
and have seen manly forms pierced by the arrows which
God's messenger has drawn from his quiver, and shot
with unerring aim from his death-dealing bow ; in fancy
we have se?n that bent head, that blood-crimsoned chair,

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 3G5

that room crowded Avith senators and statesmen, and, ever
and anon, vocal with the cries of a wife, who exclaims:
'•Live!" " You must live" " Bring Tad — he will
speak to Tad — he loves him so I " and yet there are
scenes worse than this, — scenes which cannot be
compared with those witnessed daily by the eye of
faith ; seen by us as through a glass darkly, but seen
by Spirit eyes in all their hideous proportions, whenever
they gaze upon a world lying under bondage of death.
The sight beheld in the White House is full of touching
sadness, but the sight beheld by angel eyes within these
walls is still more gloomy. The dead in trespasses and
sins, without God, and without hope in the world, —
wdiat sight can be more pitiable than this ? " For the
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungod-
liness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth
in unrighteousness."

It was this which brought Christ to earth. He came
to bridge the bridgeless liver, and to lead captivity cap-
tive. He was and is the way, the truth, and the life.
His hand lifts heaven's window, and permits the eye to
behold the streets paved with gold, and trodden by the
feet of the redeemed. His revelation carries the torch
through the vail, and permits us to see the fountain
from whence the crystal stream flows forth, beside
which the trees of life forever stand, and beneath
which flowers b!oom that delight the eye, and
fruits abound « Inch satisfy the soul. You feel
that you have heard of that land as from a friend.
In that land there are no gray hairs, no wrinkled
cheeks, eyes do not grow dim with tears, forms are not
31*

366 SERMONS ON THE

bent with age. The step is always light, and the ruidy
glow of health is ever on the cheek. In that land there
are no creeping shadows, no wintry blasts, chilling the
blood, and driving men to seek shelter. It is a place of
rest, and a place of safety. Assassins cannot lurk there.
The vile cannot dwell there. " And there shall in no
wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatso-
ever workcth abomination or maketh a lie ; but they
which are written in the Lamb's book of life."

Spiritual life and spiritual death are determined here.
As the tree falls so it lies. This hope animates our souls
to day. When a man's feelings are benumbed ; when
his inclinations tend downwards ; when his affections are
bound around the decaying things of time, and you
find it impossible to lift them up, and cause them to
twine about the living realities of eternity, and he dies,
you feel that the beyond is full of gloom. But when he
is good, reverent, loving ; when mellowness and great-
heartedness, when faith in God, in Christ, and in the
guidance of the Holy Spirit characterized him ; when
love for God begets a love for man, and the tie that binds
him to the infinite links him to the finite ; when kind-
ness broods over the actions ; when the blessings of those
that Avere ready to perish rest upon him, and the peace
that passeth knowledge flows like a river through the
area of his life, it is impossible not to think that death
is but the introduction to a more blessed companionship
with Jesus :

Where rivers of pleasure flow bright o'er the plains,
And the noontide of glory eternally reigns."

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 367

You feel that, in the description of this good and rever-
ent soul, I have described the character of Abraham Lin-
coln. Never have we seen a nature more broad, a love
of justice more strong, an incorruptibility of character
more manifest, a loyalty to principle more binding,
than distinguished the man whom we so profoundly
mourn. As a denomination, we are indebted to him ;
for it was his innate sense of justice, and love of right,
that gave protection to some who are dear to our broth-
erhood and to our hearts. Prison-doors have been
unlocked by his hand. Soldiers condemned to be shot,
rescued by him, have leaped into the embrace of heroic
djath with his name upon their lips. The fatherless, the
stranger, the poor, and the desolate, rise up from this
stricken land, and praise God for the benefaction and
the benefactor.

We remember, with sorrow, the place of his death.
He did not die on Mount Nebo, with his eye full of
heaven. He was shot in a theatre. We are sorry for
that. It was a poor place to die in. It would not be
selected by any of you as the spot from which you would
desire to proceed to the bar of God. If ever any man
had an excuse to attend a theatre, he had. The cares
of office were heavy upon him. His brain reeled. His
frame grew weak. He longed for a change. He
desired to get away from the crowd, from the cares
and responsibilities of office. Washington's closet would
have been preferable. In conversing with a friend, he
said, " Some think I do wrong to go to the opera
and the theatre ; but it rests me. I love to be alone,
aid yet to be with the people. I want to get this

3G8 SERMONS ON THE

burden off ; to change the current of my tho ights.
A hearty laugh relieves me ; and I seem better able
after it to bear my cross." This was his excuse.
Upon it we will not pronounce a judgment. This
we will say : we are all sorry our best loved died
there. But take the truth with its shadow. Moses was
forbidden to enter the promised land because, at the
waters of Meribah, he disbelieved God, was impatient,
and took to himself the glory that belonged to God.
Doss not the rock in the desert stand as a finger
pointing forward to our danger ? does not Moses' life
assure us that none of us can hope for heaven through
or because of any merits of our own ?

We have not tried to disguise his fault, if you choose
to give it that name. Is it not strange that there is no
other which suggests itself? But I know of none.
Admit this, and answer me. If you were to send a man
to heaven, to represent the American people there,
Avould you not cast your vote for him ? Who was his
match in virtues ? Who has used opportunities so well,
and so wisely ?

Some tell us that he would not have done for the
hour. God knows best ; and God took him : but do
you believe that was the reason ? Has he not always
met the emergency, and did not his last act show us
that he was ready to meet this ? If he erred in
leniency, did not he prove himself ready to be just, in
condemning men who evidenced that they were ready
to trifle with the imperilled interests of the country ?

Is it not more just to say, God looked in pity upon
a nation that had floated off the crime of slavery upon

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 359

the outflowing currents of its own crimson life ; and that,
in one blow, God intended to prepare us to understand
his purposes, and make us ready for his judgments ?
As another has said, " The cowardly crack of that pistol
was the fitting knell of the infamous romance which ever
belongs to feudal fierceness, and we shall probably hear
no more of it. On Good Friday, long ago, the God ot
Martyrs was sequestrated from all apparent hope; but
ou the tomb of the Sacrificed arose the banner of free-
dom everywhere and forevermore. Coming ages will
hold our beloved President in perpetually augmenting
esteem, until the vestiges of his beneficent rule are
found, not along the strand of an inland sea, but upon
the highest range of central mountains, equidistant
between world-washing oceans, with the old flag above
and the youngest race beneath, free under every tint,
and fearing only God !

In the future it shall be discoverable, as it is not at
this time, that his work was finished. Our country
resembled a magnificent war-steamer, lodged midway in
the Mississippi, but destined to sail the ocean. When
Abraham Lincoln stepped upon her deck, four years ago,
he found her prow in the muddy bank, her wheels were
clogged with flood-wood, and her stern Avas swept by
the resistless current. "When he began his work he did
not do any remarkable thing. He loosened first one
wheel and then the other. He turned on the steam, got
her prow into the current, and began to sail down the
mighty river. It was a perilous passage. Now she
was swept along by rapids, now she moved amid frown-
ing shores, alive with guerillas, and bristling with bat-

370 SERMONS ON THE

terics. Now she was stopped by sand-bars, and now
driven through perilous channels, and the nation's hope
died out, at times, as night settled down upon the ship
and its brave commander. At last the gray dawn
appeared, and the morning broke. The ship was moving,
and he was on the prow, and the brave old crew stood
by his side. At last Vicksburg fell ; the ship moved
on. You remember his words : '• The signs look better.
The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.
Thanks to the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly
to them. Three hundred miles up they met New Eng-
land, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way,
right and left. Nor must Uncle Sam's web feet be
forgotten. At all the water's margins they have been
present, not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the
rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and
wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been,
and made their tracks. Thanks to all for the great
republic, for the principles by which it lives and keeps
alive for man's future ; thanks to all. Peace does not
appear so far distant as it did. I hope it will come
soon, and come to stay ; and so come as to be worth
the keeping for all future time." Sustained by this
hope, how he worked, how he waited ! Peace was
coming ; the current of a national purpose grew stronger
and stronger ; our ship passed straight into the Gulf,
and our commander got a little taste of the salt sea,
and a slight touch of the billow when he confronted
the long swell of the Atlantic. At this point a strange
Providence startles us. The assassin's bullet causes him
to step aside, just as the nation begins to think of

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 371

closing up the rebellion ; and so, in a moment, as if
summoned by God to new and fresh work, she lays
aside her glove of kid, and puts on her glove of iron, —
gets ready to answer the difficult questions and solve the
knotted problems, and settle her running account with
the traitors at home, and with the sympathizers with
traitors abroad. A man falls, but a nation lives. A
fact which would have thrown France into a revolution
but steadies the American character, and solidifies our
government. Yesterday, we considered the effects of
this death upon the settlement of national questions
and the jurisprudence of the land. To-day, let us con-
fine our attention to the delineation of his character,
and follow him as he enters upon his reward on high.

Consider now here God's goodness to our Chief
Magistrate. Come with me to the eternal city, ye
that know what it is to see a look of love come to you
from the hungry whom ye have fed, and the naked
whom ye have clothed, and behold Abraham Lincoln
walking humbly the golden streets bearing in his arms
the manacles of four million redeemed bondmen, and of
thirty million emancipated freemen, and saying in his
quaint way, Dear Master, these are the. results of the
washing of thy blood, and of the proclamation of thy
glorious gospel. Behold the husbands and sons whose
spirits have preceded him from battle-fields and prisons,
from the slave-pen and from the dungeon, and hear
them in their ascriptions of praise to Him to whom,
belongeth the glory forevermore.

It is hard to part with him, but it is cruelty to wish
him back. His life was round, full, and complete. Can

372 SERMONS ON THE

you not see Jesus opening the record of him whose
footprints of love are found in every path where it was
possible for him to be useful ? Can you not see his face
light up as Jesus leads him into the mansions hung with
the pictures of his faithful acts ? There is one where
he saved the widow's son, whose father had been his
benefactor in his youth. There is another descriptive
of his thoughtful tenderness to his aged stepmother, who
has been supported by his munificent care. Another
reveals him writing sometimes five hundred notes per
day for the poor and the destitute in Washington,
asking a job for this laborer, a pass for this wife,
granting a pardon for this innocent, and bending his
tired frame over documents in which he can have no
personal interest, in his search for justice. There are a
few acts which will immortalize him in history. The
Emancipation Proclamation is the crowning act. This
secures him immortality. This lifts him to a niche in
the temple of fame an arrow's shot higher than any
ever held by any living American. But in heaven,
methinks, I see Christ's eye reading records our eyes
never will see, and hear him saying, " Inasmuch as ye
did it unto these, ye did it unto me." The form of his
beneficent face will be perpetuated in marble, and cities
will vie with each other in piling up monuments, to
attest their appreciation of his worth.

A Christian's monument is not built of any material
as decaying in its nature as marble. It cannot be con-
fined to any given locality. Would you see the monu-
ment of Moses you need not make a pilgrimage to
Mount Nebo, or search with your eye the plains of

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LTNCOLN. 373

Moab for a mosque or a marble shaft. His monument is
not there ; still, he has one visible to every eye. Look
ever the records of the past and see how that name has
ploughed its way into the history of the world. The
monument of Abraham Lincoln rests in the heart-love of
the American people. It is composed of acts which will
glow with immortal beauty ; with acts, rising higher
than any mere monument of stone, round which loving
recollections will eternally entwine themselves, and in
which the hopes of millions are enshrined. Such char-
acters are creations of God. They exist. They had a
beginning, but their growth was almost unnoticed. All
we know about them is, they were ready to bear any
burden, to endure any hardship. Press them with cares
you but hold them steady, as the beams strung along on
the top of columns keep them from falling. There is
nothing superfluous about them. Equal to every emer-
gency, ready for every task, faithful in every crisis, they
naturally become objects of almost idolatrous trust, and
of malignant hate. Their lives are full of toil and hard-
ship. As a workman often uses his best instrument to
overcome the greatest difficulty, and to surmount the
most perplexing obstacle, as the strongest men are sent
to perform the hardest tasks, so God gives his chosen
ones heavy burdens, and sends them forward on perilous
enterprises, knowing that they have the nerve to attempt,
the courage to endure, and the faith requisite to the
accomplishment of the gigantic undertaking.

Abraham Lincoln's traits of character are easily
described. His power of trust was marvellous. He
believed in the structural power of our free institutions,
32

374 SERMONS ON THE

which, without any statesman's cooperation, is slowly
building a free nation on this great continent. He felt
that the dogmas of the great past were inadequate to the
glorious present. "The occasion," said he, "is piled
high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.
"We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our
country." He believed in the logic of events, because
in them he thought he saw the purposes of God.

He believed in the people, and longed to hear from
them. He asked for discussion as for light, and awaited
opportunity. At the outset he pledged himself simply
" to hold, occupy, and possess the property of the United
States ; " and when he accomplished the task, he passed
away. He was a conscientious and deeply honest man.
He was afraid of gratifying self at the expense of duty,
and of sacrificing duty for the sake of self. This ex-
plains many mysteries. The hand that wrote, " If I
could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would
do it," wrote, also, " I am, naturally, anti-slavery. If
slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot re-
member when I did not so think and feel. And yet
I have never understood that the Presidency conferred
upon me an unrestricted right to act, officially, upon
this judgment and feeling."

His integrity was thorough, all pervading and all con-
trolling. He hesitated to put down his foot. There is
little doubt but thousands of lives were sacrificed because
of his slowness ; but when he put down his foot it was
as immovable as the rock itself, and his waiting may
have saved the nation. We all remember his message
in which he disclosed his purpose of giving freedom to

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 375

the slave. It assumed the form of a duty. " In giving
freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free, hon-
orable alike in what we give and what we preserve.
We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope
of earth. Other means may succeed : this could not
fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just ; a way
which, if followed, the world will forever approve, and
God must forever bless."

The people confided in him, not so much because they
believed in his genius, or in the quickness of his percep-
tions, as because of a sense of safety and security,
which was begotten by the methods chosen to reach
important conclusions.

He believed in God and recognized the value of
pra)rer. Hence, when he left Springfield for Washing-
ton, fifty-three months before, he said to his old and
tried friends, " I leave you with this request : pray for
me." Ihey did pray for him. Millions beside them
prayed for him. To a company of clergymen he said,
" Gentlemen, my hope of success in this great and terri-
ble struggle rests on that immutable foundation, the
justice and goodness of God. And when events are
very threatening, and prospects are very dark, I still
hope that in some way which man cannot see, all will
be well in the end, because our cause is just, and God is
on our side."

He was one of the people. Well do some of us
remember standing upon the steps of the White House,
as he came forth from the Presidential mansion. He
bowed to us in passing. Our hearts were touched by
his careworn, anxious face. Passing into the grounds,

376 SERMONS ON THE

on his waj to the War Office, he stopped to give a
greeting to a couple of pet goats that waited for his
recognition. While thus engaged, one of the party
stepped up and said, "Mr. Lincoln, will you allow
me to introduce to you two Massachusetts women."
He drew himself up to his full height, swept his hand
over his face, and said, "Yes, hring them along." We
came, and were introduced. He chatted pleasantly until
we grew frightened, and begged him not to allow us to
intrude upon his time. We felt, it was said, that it
would be a great pleasure to shake hands with our
honored Chief Magistrate, here, beneath God's open
heaven, and on this green grass. " Ah ! " said he,
waiting a moment, " such a privilege is worth contend-
ing for," and then, assuring us of his pleasure to greet
the people, he passed on to his laborious tasks. Well
has it been said, "No one who approached him, whether
as minister or messenger, felt impelled either to stoop or
strut in his presence." Edward Everett, after observing
his bearing, at Gettysburg, among the Cabinet and
foreign ministers, the Governor, and other notables,
pronounced him the peer, in deportment, of any one
present.

He was an affectionate man. He never forgot a favor
or a friend. The men he loved before he was President,
he loved even more tenderly after he learned the value
of their disinterested affection.

He was a temperance man, and never used intoxicating
liquors, or tobacco. After his return from Richmond,
we are told, a cask of old whiskey, taken from the cel-
lar of one of the southern grandees, was brought to the

DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 37 7

War Office, and opened. He was urged to take it in
honor of the occasion. He declined, and thus refused
to lend the influence of his name and position to the
support of a practice which has wrought such immense
mischief in the Army and in the State.

In the poem which he was so fond of repeating, and
which he learned when a young man, you discover a key
which unlocks many of the mysteries of that marvellous
life. There is a charm in them which will repay perusal
not only because of their intrinsic beauty, but because
when we read them we seem to get near his great mind
loving heart : —

Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid,
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.

The infant a mother attended and loved ;
The mother that infant's affection who proved ;
The husband that mother and infant who blessed ;
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of ltest.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne ;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn ;
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

32*

378 SERMONS ON THE

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap ;
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep ;
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread ;
Have faded away, like the grass that we tread.

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed
That withers away, to let others succeed ;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same our fathers have been ;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen ;
We drink the same stream, and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think ;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrii
To the life we are clinging they also would cling :
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the Aving.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold ;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold ;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come ;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died, ay ! they died ; we, things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea ! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain ;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 379

Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death ;
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud, —
Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?

A man that revolved such thoughts in his mind was not
likely to be elated by his position or place. There
is one more fact which deserves to be mentioned,
because it places the last stone upon the monumental
pile of his greatness. He took time daily to peruse his
Bible, and was often found up at four o'clock in the early
morning holding communion with the Father of Lights
in his word. Such is the character which America at
this time places in her gilded bark of hope, and sends
down the current of time to the distant future. Who-
ever in Europe or Asia or Africa shall behold its heaven-
enkindling look, will find the face of him whose

" Patient toil
Had robed our cause in victory's light, —

" A martyr to the cause of man,
His blood is freedom's eucharist,
And in the World's great hero-list
His name shall lead the van.

" Yea ! raised on faith's white wings, unfurled
In heaven's pure light, of him we say ;
He fell upon the self-same day
A Greater died to save the world."

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, it appears from evidence in the Bureau of
Military Justice, that the atrocious murder of the late
President, Abraham Lincoln, and the attempted assas-
sination of the Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of
State, were incited, concerted, and procured by and
between Jefferson Davis, late of Richmond, Va., and
Jacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker,
George N, Sanders, W. C. Cleary, and other rebels and
traitors against the Government of the United States,
harbored in Canada ;

Now, therefore, to the end that justice may be done,
I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do
offer and promise for the arrest of said persons, or either
of them, Avithin the limits of the United States, so that
they can be brought to trial, the following rewards :

One Hundred Thousand Dollars for the arrest of
Jefferson Davis.

Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars for the arrest of
Clement C. Clay.

Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars for the arrest of
Jacob Thompson, late of Mississippi.

Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars for the arrest of
George N. Sanders.

Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars for the arrest of
Beverly Tucker, and

Ten Thousand Dollars for the arrest of William C.
Cleary, late Clerk of Clement C. Clay.

The Provost Marshal General of the United States is
directed to cause a description of the said persons, with
the notice of the above rewards, to be published.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand

and caused the seal of the United States to be aflxed.

Done at the city of Washington, on this 2d day of May,

in the year of our Lord one thousand

eight hundred and sixty-five, and of the

[ii. s.] Independence of the United States of

America the eighty-ninth.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

By the President.

Wm. Hunter, Acthig Secretary of State.

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Full text of "Sermons preached in Boston on the death of Abraham Lincoln : together with the funeral services in the East Room of the Executive Mansion at Washington"

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